Saturday and Sundries

Occasional commenter "JD" in the UK sent me, as a "wonderful antidote to the general madness all around us", a link to a story about one Justo Gallego (right). He is building a Cathedral in Mejorada del Campo near Madrid.

The Madman & The Cathedral
Also a video. More are available at YouTube.

I noticed, in glancing down Wikipedia's list of people, events, holidays and observances for 24 July a note that the date marks the feast day of Christina the Astonishing (c.1150 – 24 July 1224). Curious to know about this lady's ability to astonish, I read further. Christina
first astonished those gathered at her funeral by waking up and reportedly floating to the rafters. From then on her life seems to have consisted of a long line of astonishments - Wikipedia has details; for a lighter read see Ship of Fools, HERE.

I do wonder about husband's photo, snapped in an antique store somewhere on our travels. Did the store owner deliberately set that clock to quarter to 3? It's quarter to three there's no one in the place except you and me....

Not sure whether I've seen one of these on our travels - maybe not, or I'd surely remember it!
Rescuing America's roadside giantsBy Jasmine Taylor-Coleman.

Anyone making a road trip across America will sooner or later run across a giant statue - a cowboy, an American Indian chief or a lumberjack, perhaps...........

On Summer

“I believe someone made a grievous mistake when summer was created; no novitiate or god in their right mind would make a season akin to hell on purpose. Someone should be fired.” ― Michelle Franklin

When I think of Hillary Clinton (I do try not to) I also think of Eva Perón, and The show Evita. Yeah - I know there are massive differences, but.... For me the ultimate definitive version of the show's music and lyrics is the original concept album, recorded long before any stage show or movie had appeared. Below, from the original concept album singing "High Flying Adored": Julie Covington as Eva and CT Wilkinson as Che - accompanied by some nice high flying photography.

Twitter had an amusing theme one day this week:
#Upper-class Beatles. A few of my favourite entries, with, for any Beatles-challenged readers, translation to the originals:



I want to own your land  (I want to hold your hand)

Lovely Rita, meet the maid  (Lovely Rita meter-maid)

Why don't we do it in the Rolls?  (Why don't we do it in the road?)

Hey, you gotta hide your Chardonnay  (Hey, you gotta hide your love away)

Heir comes the son  (Here comes the sun)

While my gardener gently sweeps  (While my guitar gently weeps)

Lucy in Dubai buying diamonds (Lucy in the sky with diamonds).

Music Monday~ Into Summer....Loudly sing, "Cuckoo!"

"Sumer Is Icumen In" is a traditional English medieval round, and possibly the oldest such example of counterpoint in existence. The title might be translated as "Summer has come in" or "Summer has arrived".
The round is sometimes known as the Reading rota because the manuscript comes from Reading Abbey though it may not have been written there. It is the oldest piece of six-part polyphonic music (Albright, 1994). Its composer is anonymous, possibly W. de Wycombe, and it is estimated to date from around 1260. The manuscript is now at the British Library. The language is Middle English, more exactly Wessex dialect.
(From the YouTube video site.)
Translated:
Summer has arrived,
Loudly sing, Cuckoo!
The seed grows and the meadow
blooms
And the wood springs anew.....etc.

A few, more modern, celebrations of the season:

HAPPY DAZE!

Summer Solstice ~ Hopper's and Vettriano's Summers

Today: Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere, while winter begins in the southern half of the globe.

Oklahoma summers are not my cup o' tea by a long chalk. Why? The extreme heat, the insect bites, the allergies..... so excuse me if I don't celebrate with wild enthusiasm. To mark the day, though, I'll pull out half a dozen depictions of summer by a couple of favouite painters of mine. These two don't paint leafy glades and gardens filled with flowers, instead their summers are urbane in flavour rather than rural.....It comes as a surprise that I find a more evocative sense of summer in these works than from any rural or floral scene, even those painted by the best of the best. My two chosen painters: Edward Hopper and Jack Vettriano, the former is a well-loved American artist, the latter artist is sometimes - always even - derided by critics, but that only endears him to me the more!

There are archived posts on both artists with notes about their astrology HERE
and HERE.


Edward Hopper's summer ~~

Jack Vettriano's summer ~~

And a matching track: The Summer Knows - theme from the 1971 movie The Summer of '42. It was composed by multiple Oscar and Grammy Award winner, French composer Michel Legrand, with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, sung here by Scott Walker, whose rendition has just the right "feel" to it to blend with these paintings.

Or...if a female vocalist is preferred, it'd be hard to top Ms Streisand's version -nice video with this one too: