Various Goings On

The weather here in southern Oklahoma is, at last, after days of temperatures in the 80s, acting in more autumnal fashion. Today it's actually cool to cold outside - 49 degrees, windy with a storm in the offing. The trees haven't yet donned their fall colours, after a few more of these cooler nights, it'll happen.

In other news, a routine blood test on 16 October, to discover how the targeted therapy medications are affecting my blood quality, showed that the white cell count was below desired minimum - same for platelets. Oncologist told me to take a second week off the Ibrance capsules - these are routinely taken for 21 days with 7 days off each month. This time I had 14 days off. Blood test yesterday showed figures had bounced back to an acceptable level, so off I go again with the Ibrance. I'm to have a CT scan next week - to check whether much has changed for good or for ill since my last scans around 6 months ago. Not looking forward to that!



The problems I had in obtaining a refill of my pain medication last month happily did not recur this time. Our usual pharmacy has changed their wholesaler. The medications I take for pain-while-walking now come from a different generic manufacturer. I was worried that these might be even less effective than those I've been taking, but, though it's a little early to be sure, I do suspect that these might be a tad more effective.

Further afield, Brexit bumbles on...and on....and on. When, oh when, oh when will it end? The part of it all that affects me personally is the currency exchange rate, it affects my two pensions coming from the UK. The rate has been volatile for a couple or more years, diving down then up, down again etc, depending on what had been Boris Johnson's or Ms May's latest failed attempts at bringing about a deal.

In the USA the season known as "The Holidays" is almost upon us. I'm glad to be here, still, to see it once again! Hallowe'en decor has been showing up for the past few weeks in front yards - ghosties, ghoulies and long leggedy beasties, spider webs and witches...you know the drill. We now await the Trick or Treaters on 31st of the month. We had very few last year - disappointing, because it's fun to see the imaginative costumes the kids come up with, and the excitement on the faces of the littlest ones. Perhaps the custom is starting to go out of fashion, for one reason or another - safety, perhaps, and many communal organised Hallowe'en costume events. Next up: Thanksgiving on 28 November, followed by You-Know-What-mas, a month later.
Ka-ching...ka-ching!

On the knitting front, I'm using a big skein of pink "ombre" tinted yarn to make another, longer scarf. It's something I can pick up and just knit, without need to refer to a pattern. I love seeing the changing shades of pink appear, apropos of which, I noticed that my husband is reading "The Secret Lives of Colour" by Kassia St Clair. I shall read it too, when he's done with it. Back-cover blurb: "From the scarlet women to imperial purple, from the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, from kelly green to acid yellow, the surprising stories of colour run like a bright thread through our history." Several varieties of pink are investigated, for example: Baker-Miller Pink; Mountbatten Pink, Puce, Fuchsia; Shocking Pink, Fluorescent Pink, and Amaranth. Maybe some of those will appear in my scarf.

Music Monday ~ Autumn ~ Vivaldi's Music & Reputation

Most of the land is feeling autumnal now, even here in southern Oklahoma we see some Fall colour emerging. Antonio Vivaldi's "Autumn" from his "Four Seasons" suite fills the bill for today, but first, a little about the composer.

Vivaldi's name came up the other day at Quora under a question asking "Which historical music composer had a very bizarre lifestyle?" I was curious enough to go check out more about Vivaldi. Some sources tell that Vivaldi, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, was a source of embarrassment to Rome — and thus a source of scandal.

Excerpt from a Guardian piece by Susan Orlando, in 2008:

SAINT or SINNER

Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678, the son of a professional violinist. His musical training was with his father but by 1693 he was taking steps to enter the priesthood as well. The year of his ordination, 1703, he was also engaged as music teacher by a home for foundlings, La Pietà, and it is here that the conjecture begins.

From 1703 to 1735, Vivaldi alternately, and at times simultaneously, played the role of music master and composer to the young girls living at La Pietà. Imagining Vivaldi in such a scene of temptation, in a role of both authority and intimacy among these vulnerable young women, has seduced writers and film-makers into fantasising about the erotic potential of the scenario. It is easy to imagine a libidinous red-haired priest exploiting the privileges of the cloth, in an institution that even 17th- and 18th-century visitors described with thinly veiled salaciousness. For the record, we know he had red hair, wore a habit and suffered from asthma, for which he was excused from having to recite mass. As to illicit affairs, we have nothing to go on.

A better documented trail leads to Vivaldi's muse, Anna Giro. In 1724, this promising young singer and her elder half-sister, acting as chaperone, moved in with Vivaldi. Anna first sang in one of Vivaldi's operas in 1726 and appeared in nearly all his operas after that. She was closely affiliated with him until the end of his life. Again, the titillating image of a "loose" priest comes up. In truth, this arrangement may not have been so shocking in an age in which priests traditionally maintained a life-long, live-in "perpetua" - a woman who dedicated her time to the priest as cook, house cleaner and general companion. But Anna held a special place in Vivaldi's heart; in opera after opera he wrote roles specifically for her, moulding the music to her particular vocal strengths and weaknesses. No other singer received such consistent attention and privilege from the composer. In 1738 Vivaldi was refused entrance to the city of Ferrara where his opera Farnace was to be performed. The city's new cardinal was making a moral point - his disapproval of a priest involved in the frivolities of the operatic world and living under the same roof as a female singer. But Vivaldi consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Vivaldi's natal chart is available at Astrodatabank HERE.

I note that his Sun was in Pisces, with Mercury, Mars and Neptune in Aquarius, Moon in Leo and Virgo rising. Those personal planets in Aquarius along with Neptune, ruler of his Sun might indicate a person not particularly bound by his era's customs, yet Virgo rising would indicate a certain meticulousness in his nature. It's a toss up, I think, whether he was really "saint or sinner". It matters little now, anyway - he did leave us some beautiful music.




Posted to YouTube by Melania Anghel, she added:

"Autumn" - "The Four Seasons" ANTONIO VIVALDI. On my channel you may also find "Spring", "Summer" and "Winter" similar videos by the same performing artists. This concert is played by John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players, music from Free Music. Archive .
ANTONIO VIVALDI "The Four Seasons" - This music was written earlier in 1727, came out in Amsterdam, Holland, "The ordeal of harmony and invention". "AUTUMN" Concerto N.3 in F Major Op.8, RV 293 is divided into three movements: cheerful, adagio, cheerful. Beautiful sound effects of the nature changing from warm to cold; I illustrated with colored red and yellow pictures in slide-show.

Equinox is Here Again!

Are we there yet? We are indeed - but you wouldn't know it, in Oklahoma. It'll be many more weeks before the leaves begin to turn colour and fall, or before temperatures start to tumble too. Yet, officially we are here...

“But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.”
― Stephen King, 'Salem's Lot

Here's an autumnal equinox-related oddity I hadn't not come across before - from the ancient Roman world:

Equinox and medical theory

The Aëtius parapegma is an almanac that appears as a chapter in the 6th-century Tetrabiblos of Aëtius of Amida. It treats the rising and setting of constellations, weather forecasting, and medical advice as closely intertwined, and notes of the equinox (placed on September 25) that -

There is the greatest disturbance in the air for three days previous. Thus it is necessary to be careful neither to phlebotomize, nor purge, nor otherwise to change the body violently from the 15th of September through the 24th.

The passage is presented as advice for physicians, based on the principle that "the bodies of healthy people, and especially those of sick people, change with the condition of the air".

So, blood-letting and purging are not recommended. Alrighty then!

Saturday and Sundries

We're currently re-watching the 1970s TV mini-series Centennial, via a DVD set. I never tire of this story - often think that it was my love of Centennial, and another mini-series and novel, Lonesome Dove, which set my mind on the right track for my move across the Atlantic, and at a late stage of life. I still wake up surprised some mornings, to find myself smack-dab on the Chisholm Trail! That cattle trail is not the exact one featured in a chapter of Centennial - but it's comparable.

On this viewing of the TV adaptation of James A. Michener's epic novel - we're two-thirds through the series, as I type this - what I've noticed most is how, though passage of time has brought massive changes in lifestyle, especially in the 21st century, in deeper aspects nothing much has changed. The pattern of killing, retribution killing, then killing again, remains. Much of today's killing is done far away from the USA in the Middle East; retribution occasionally occurs here at home as well as directly, abroad. It's as though this nation, born in blood, is fated to live on in blood. There were some good men then (fictional in this case, but actual also), there are good men now, but never enough - then or now.

My 2008 archived post on Centennial is HERE.

Husband's new blog/website Cabinet Card Photographers has taken him many long hours of research work, which he has enjoyed and pronounced addictive.

Fall foliage Prediction Map -

It's interactive - could come in useful for leaf-peepers.

MASSES
by Carl Sandburg

Among the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and red crag and was amazed;

On the beach where the long push under the endless tide maneuvers, I stood silent;

Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant over the horizon’s grass, I was full of thoughts.

Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers, mothers lifting their children—these all I touched, and felt the solemn thrill of them.

And then one day I got a true look at the Poor, millions of the Poor, patient and toiling; more patient than crags, tides, and stars; innumerable, patient as the darkness of night—and all broken, humble ruins of nations.

If an infinite number of rednecks
fired an infinite number of shotguns
at an infinite number of road signs,
they'd eventually recreate
the complete works of Shakespeare
in Braille.

 I discovered the truth of it when on vacation, meeting  Himself, in 2003.

Wot - no astrology?
This Twitter offering, from #Rejected Horoscopes, might be good for a titter:

Fall Equinox

 David Palladini's Zodiac, Summer thru Fall +

Happy Autumn to all!

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in The American Notebooks in October 1842, wrote:

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

I'm with Nat. So after today the blog will stand still until Monday. We are to attend husband's High School Reunion (60th) this weekend, up in Salina, Kansas. We shall probably only attend the "mixer" meeting(s), rather than any regimented dinners etc. Not sure how I shall feel about it - I resolutely refused to attend any such affairs relating to my own schooldays, back in the UK. Still, I do like Salina, and there are antique stores to explore, should things become depressingly...erm... elderly.

WELCOMING AUTUMN !

Autumnal Equinox, 2014! To welcome my favourite season, some words from a set of writers
I look on as absolute masters of their craft. They are (in no particular order) American, English, Scottish, Welsh & Northern Irish (because Britons are... better together but can also be appreciated apart - see!).

“But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.”
― Stephen King, "Salem's Lot"


“That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”
~ Ray Bradbury


“And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days...”
~ Dylan Thomas, Collected Poems

“Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.”
~Sir Walter Scott



Lo! I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold;
Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out
The year and I are old.

In youth I sought the prince of men,
Captain in cosmic wars,
Our Titan, even the weeds would show
Defiant, to the stars.

But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.

In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.

~ G.K. Chesterton "Gold Leaves"




Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
we trekked and picked until the cans were full,
until the tinkling bottom had been covered
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

~Seamus Heaney "Blackberry Picking"



“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
~ George Eliot [Letter to Miss Eliot, Oct. 1, 1841]


“Autumns reward western Kansas for the evils that the remaining seasons impose: winter's rough Colorado winds and hip-high, sheep-slaughtering snows; the slushes and the strange land fogs of spring; and summer, when even crows seek the puny shade, and the tawny infinitude of wheatstalks bristle, blaze. At last, after September, another weather arrives, an Indian summer that occasionally endures until Christmas.”
~ Truman Capote, "In Cold Blood"


“It was one of those sumptuous days when the world is full of autumn muskiness and tangy, crisp perfection: vivid blue sky, deep green fields, leaves in a thousand luminous hues. It is a truly astounding sight when every tree in a landscape becomes individual, when each winding back highway and plump hillside is suddenly and infinitely splashed with every sharp shade that nature can bestow - flaming scarlet, lustrous gold, throbbing vermilion, fiery orange.”
~ Bill Bryson, "I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away"


“The summer ended. Day by day, and taking its time, the summer ended. The noises in the street began to change, diminish, voices became fewer, the music sparse. Daily, blocks and blocks of children were spirited away. Grownups retreated from the streets, into the houses. Adolescents moved from the sidewalk to the stoop to the hallway to the stairs, and rooftops were abandoned. Such trees as there were allowed their leaves to fall - they fell unnoticed - seeming to promise, not without bitterness, to endure another year. At night, from a distance, the parks and playgrounds seemed inhabited by fireflies, and the night came sooner, inched in closer, fell with a greater weight. The sound of the alarm clock conquered the sound of the tambourine, the houses put on their winter faces. The houses stared down a bitter landscape, seeming, not without bitterness, to have resolved to endure another year.”
~ James Baldwin

LOCAL COLOUR/COLOR (No astro today)

Back in the saddle again after a gentle motorized waltz around East Texas. We looked for whatever autumn/fall colour there was, nosed around a few Texas towns, and some antique and junk stores, of which the Lone Star State has many thousands.

Autumn colour is trickier to pin down than antique stores. So much depends on unpredictable variables of local climate, timing of cold snaps, how much moisture the summer months offered, etc. Texas isn't known for large expanses of fall colour, but there's opportunity for splashes of it, especially in the lusher eastern section of such a vast state. Texas is, actually, much like a country unto itself, and many of its natives tend to see it as such.

I picked Nacogdoches as being a likely farthest point we'd aim for. It's said to be the oldest town in Texas, sits on the site of a 10,000 year old settlement of the Nacogdoche tribe of Caddo Indians. The route we took is marked on the map below.




Autumn colour wasn't especially prominent on the route, but there were hints that it was about to burst forth during the next day or two in the densely wooded areas all around the East Texas countryside, and in the heavily wooded margins of some very pretty highways. This part of Texas is known for its pine woods, but scattered among them are trees which will "turn".

It was Sunday, so little was open en route by way of distraction. Himself (my husband) drove for 7 hours straight, with one pee stop. We arrived in Nacogdoches just as darkness fell and checked in for two nights at the first motel we encountered.

Exploring the well-preserved old downtown area next day, we had our attention drawn to one of the town's claims to fame, apart from its history(recorded around the town square via informative plaques), and its fine architecture largely designed by German architect and immigrant Diedrich Rulfs. That extra claim to fame involves The Marx Brothers who came to town in 1912 with their (then) singing act to perform at the old Opera House.
The story goes, according to The Marx Brothers Encyclopedia by Glenn Mitchell, that their performance was interrupted by a man who came inside shouting, “Runaway mule!” Most of the audience left the building, apparently thinking a runaway mule would provide better entertainment. When they filed back in, Julius (later known as Groucho) began insulting them, saying “Nacogdoches is full of roaches!” and “The jackass is the flower of Tex-ass!” Instead of becoming angry, audience members laughed. Soon afterward, Julius and his brothers decided to try their hand at comedy instead of singing, at which they had barely managed to scrape together a living. So, in Nacogdoches, Texas their singing act became what is now a legendary comedy act. A historic plaque commemorating the event is posted in the downtown area.

After a second night in Nacogdoches, where we'd enjoyed some perfect glisteningly sunny, but not too hot, weather we were in two minds whether to drive east into Louisiana. There was a very nice "feel" to Nacogdoches. The people we came across in stores and cafes were so sweet, even more friendly and kindly than Oklahomans and other Texans. I liked it a lot - my husband reminded me that we were close there to "the real south", where people truly do have lots of "southern charm". A short hop into Louisiana was a great temptation, but on balance we decided to keep that pleasure for another time.

We moseyed on down 20 miles south of Nacogdoches to take a quick look at Lufkin. Traffic congestion there soon had us heading back north. We got as far as Sulphur Springs, through the Davy Crockett National Forest. Leaf colour was still in early-turning stages there. Onward through small towns called Palestine and Athens (tiny burgs, nothing like their namesakes), to Sulphur Springs.

(Above: the pink granite and red sandstone Hopkins County Court House in Sulphur Springs)

I remember little about Sulphur Springs other than its ornate court house, nice town square, and.... the diner, aptly called The Pitt, where we ate breakfast on Wednesday morning (our car is under the sign). It must be one of the few eating places in the USA where smoking is still allowed. Normally we'd have hightailed it out as soon as the smell of smoke enraged our nostrils. Breakfast was hard to find in Sulphur Springs, however, and a bit of local colour adds to the fun. Our waitress, early 20s, 5 foot nothing and under 100 lbs of pure energy, after only two words from me, with rapid fire delivery demanded:

"Where's your accent from?"

"England"

"Ahhh! Do you know Jack Haley? He's from England - I used to work for him "

Somewhat taken aback, and probably still half-asleep I asked, "Who?" (As though I might possibly have known the guy!) Aware that Himself was trying unsuccessfully not to giggle, I managed to splutter, "No, sorry, don't know him", whilst trying not to rudely burst into laughter myself before she whizzed off on her way.

Next overnight stop: Greenville, with some very heavy Interstate traffic, but once in the quiet of "historic downtown" we found a few junk shops and antiques stores. One item I saw there has remained in memory: a framed photograph of the town square during some kind of festival, back in the 1950s, or perhaps early 1960s. A big black and white banner strung across the main street proclaimed "Greenville - The land is all black - The people are all white!" Himself glanced at it and sighed. "We've come a long way since then", he said and moved along. In stage whisper I responded, "Some of you have; others not far enough".

In the motel in Greenville I managed to somehow pull our laptop off a table. On its rapid downward trajectory a corner of it jabbed the un-shoed toes of my left foot, causing some fairly serious pain which was to dog me for the next couple of days. I confirm, though, that no serious harm was done to laptop or toes during the making of this trip.

Thursday, 11 November: Veteran's Day. We left Greenville folk busy adding rows of flags to an already plentiful supply around town. Headed north for a look at the dual city of Sherman-Denison, then decided to carry on westward to Gainesville, leaving our last homeward leg on Friday short enough to allow for some further antiquey stop-offs.

We booked in to a motel just as the sun had set, then went looking for food. It was almost dark. The good people of Gainsville were gathering for a fireworks display in the park, in honor of Veterans' day. (NOTE ~ Fireworks? Really?


In England 11 November is marked by 2 minutes of silence at 11 am, and sombrely dressed dignitaries laying poppy wreaths on Cenotaphs in cities throughout the land to honour the dead of two world wars. Fireworks? No way! They'd remind Brits too much of the real flashes, crashes and destruction of World War 2 with its deadly blitzes on British cities.)




Fireworks though? Very odd. Is it something to do with those lines in the US National anthem "And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there"?

Anyway - I digress.

Sections of Gainesville highways and Interstate access routes had been closed off due to the fireworks display, with traffic diverted. On the Interstate through town, always busy anyway, it became well nigh impossible to negotiate a route to reach the town's eateries. It took us more than an hour, and goodness knows how many miles of driving in ever decreasing circles, to reach an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) which lay a very short distance from the motel. Only the fireworks lighting the sky kept us semi-oriented on our laughable but frustrating hour long not-so-merry-go-round. If I never see Gainesville again it'll be soon enough!

Friday's last leg of the trip brought us home via Muenster, a Germanic little town, then tiny St. Jo, and Nocona, once famous for its boot factory. Autumn colour, all the way back from Nacogdoches northward had developed rather nicely in the few days since our journey south. The best of the colour, roadside, happened to be in places where we couldn't safely stop and take photographs, so the gorgeous golds, mustards, oranges and occasional reds we spotted will have to remain undocumented, but in memory.



We arrived home with a goodly pile of used VCR tapes, old photographs for the collection of Himself, some odds and ends for me, and from our last stop, at a Nocona antique/junk store, a well-framed print. This last item, found on the floor in a very grubby state, glass coated with thick dirt and what looked like dried beer splashes. What I could see underneath the dirt intrigued me. I showed it to Himself who said, "That looks like a......." (a name unknown to me). I bought it anyway, for $15. More on this item on Arty Farty Friday.....she wrote, trying one of those annoying cliff-hangery things.



Photos by Himself (apart from the Marx Bros - he's old - but not that old), poppies and firework from Google Image