No Regrets

Wed. Rot.: Scratched, Cleansed and In the News

We recently celebrated Answerjack's birthday at a little restaurant in Slavonice, a tiny, intensely picturesque town in far south Moravia.

The festivities included some Ukranian bubbly, which immediately caused everything, including my fully automatic digital camera, to go slightly out of focus. There's a reason the demand for Ukrainian "champagne" is so limited.

Slavonice was first named Zlabings by the German settlers who came to what was then a brigand-riddled borderland in the 1200s. They kicked ass and cleaned up; in the 14th century, Zlabings was a convenient stop on the main trading route between Prague and Vienna, a pretty little revenue dam in the commercial stream flowing down the highway. The town's fine, mostly monochrome sgrafitto-decorated buildings date from this brief time of peace and prosperity. Click for a close up:

 
Slavonice's sgraffiti (the word means scratched) go beyond simple figurative decoration to illustrate biblical and apocalyptic stories in serial strips along the facades of houses. The entire town can be "read" like a graphic novel. The specifics of Slavonice's post-prosperity narrative, while bad news for its population, did contribute to the town's frozen-in-time preservation.

First, the town's population was cut in half by the devastatingly destructive Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Re-routing the Prague—Vienna route in the early 1700s accelerated Zlabings' decline. Without trade monies to fund change and modernization, the town stayed exactly as it was. More really bad news: it remained mostly German-speaking and deeply identified with Germany for hundreds of years. In the 20th century, gripped by the nationalistic fervor and really lousy judgement afflicting many ethnic Germans after World War I, the majority—70 percent—of Germans in Czechoslavakia voted for the Nazis. Zlabingians were no exception.

photo from Wikipedia

After World War II, nearly 3 million people of German ancestry were expelled from Czechoslovakia under an edict whose implementation included starvation, rape, plunder, and summary execution. Ironic, huh? This program of ethnic cleansing had the full support of the Allies. Zlabings lost 90 percent of its population and its name. The nascent Communist government moved Czechs and Slovaks into the abruptly vacated homes of old Zlabings/new Slavonice and promptly drew the Iron Curtain, sealing off the town from the West on three sides. For the following 44 years, soldiers with orders to shoot to kill patrolled the exceptionally lovely surrounding forests, and the town was again suspended in time until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. It's wide open now. Because of the EU, it's easy to hike or drive across the nearby border into Austria without having to stop or show a passport.

Last Saturday, the New York Times reported that Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus welcomed a compromise that would give the Czech Republic an exemption from the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, which articulates the basic rights of all EU citizens. This pass wipes out the legal basis for property claims related to the Germans expelled in the 1940s. Vaclev looks happy!

And so does Answer-J: Pilsener and Ukranian champagne on the same day! Why not? It's his birthday!

Deer o' the Week, at the fine dining establishment where we ate in Slavonice...

And Sheep of the Week, little Rada's little lamb left behind after she, her mommy and her daddy house-sat our place in Marin for a bit while we were gone.

Bonus creepy-crawly, sighted moments after posting:

Bozhe moy! What the hell is this? It's clinging to the deck post outside the front door.

Whatever the critter, there's a bunch of them! Is it reproducing? I am so hoping they don't find their way into the house...

Wed. Rot.: Inside, Looking Out

Like everyone else, I carry a camera when I travel. I'm pretty conflicted about actually using it, though: the constant click and whirr of all those shutters at scenic spots is like a plague of locusts, and sometimes I feel like knocking out gently removing the camera from the compulsive photographer's hands and demand suggest kindly that he or she look at whatever it is in real time, at least to start.
I do like to shoot from our hotel window. Sometimes what's right in front is interesting and engaging, and sometimes it's a brick wall. You know, like real life.

This is what got me started: the view from our room the Albergo Accademia Villa Maravege, Venice. It's also a reminder of how much more organic and alive non-digital photos are.

In Bologna, Italy

In Assisi, Italy

In Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre, Italy

Assisi again. Technically, not from the window of our room; this is from the lobby.

I altered the image to use in this collage; the door opens and closes so the butterfly man can get out.

In Arcos de la Frontera, Andalucia, Spain

In Bucerias, Mexico

From the Hotel D'Avagour, Dinan, Brittany, France

From the Hotel Le Cep, Beaune, Burgundy, France.

From the apartment we rented at 7 Rue Livingstone, Montmartre, Paris...

Found a 1930's postcard with pretty much the same view. Cool.

From the Keoio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo

From the Hilton Financial District, San Francisco. That's my home town, but we were great consumers of SF hotels while we were living in the Sierra hinterboonies.

From the Hyatt Regency, San Francisco

We paid a small fortune for this view from an eminently forgettable hotel in Manhattan's Murray Hill ...

I like this version better.

From the Hotel Arigone in Olomouc, Czech Republic, just last Saturday.

From the Marriott across the street from the Prague airport, later that same day.

My favorite view of all, from the bedroom window at home this morning. I was up at the literal crack of dawn, still synched to European time and ready for a shot of Becharovka.

Wednesday Rotogravure: Getting One's Goat, and a Face Off

The extensive coverage of the Million 65,000—80,000 "Moran" March on Washington in last week's Wed. Rot. preempted pictures of Answerjack's and my excursion to the International Goat Days Family Fun Festival in Millington, Tennessee. What was I thinking?

Answer was keen to see the myotonic goats, whose PR positions them as "fainting goats." Who wouldn't want to watch goats faint in the 90+ degree, 100% humidity tag end of the Tennessee summer at a "dry"—in the Bible belt, "family" means alcohol is forbidden, but guns are still OK—event?

It turns out myotonic goats don't really faint and plotz; they sort of tremble, freeze up and appear to go into some sort of trance until given a quick shake. They are less fractious than other breeds of goat, and frankly a bit boring, especially if one is thirsty.

Plenty of beverages back at the loft in Memphis, where one often sees little dramas unfolding outside the window. We're located across the street from an art gallery that is a popular wedding reception venue: bridesmaids staggering about in stilettos amd strapless dresses, etc. I figured the girl on the left is maybe the groom's ex—she's clearly not entering into the spirit of the occasion. Or perhaps she's simply frozen in place, trembling in some sort of trance.

 Ravi and a goat at the San Francisco Zoo in 1974...

My mother and two of her four younger siblings, with a photogenic goat, Chicago, 1934.

Back home in Marin County, it's high season for our Russian tomatoes—intensely tomato-y flavor, slightly smoky, so sweet that they ferment on the vine if not picked promptly. Sublime with a couple of grains of fleur de sel.

Murphy, the serial killer cat, is a strict carnivore, but does not like to eat faces.

Or rumps.

Anabel, the queen of the sheep collection, watches Babe in the City with us. It was intended to cheer up John and Jessica, who had an unpleasant adventure on a weekend trip. But it is a nasty, dark, depressing film, complete with nightmare clown, so we said goodnight and went to bed.

Deux Deer of the Week: this assemble-it-yourself deer head, sent by my sister Chris to celebrate what turned out to be a premature victory lap over vanquishing the rapacious deer in the yard...

And this, a cunning little app loaded onto my iPhone in response to the deer re-establishing a hoof-hold on the property. I'm a pretty good shot. Motivated, y'know.

Another view from the bedroom window in Marin. I prefer it to the view in Memphis.

Wednesday Rotogravure: Some -isms and Some Suggestions

This weeks Wed. Rot. is a little different from previous rots. There is such a surfeit of interesting topical photos floating around the Interweb, pictures much more intriguing  than the ones I took last weekend at the International Goat Days Festival in Millington, Tennessee.

Clearly I misspent my weekend. I could have been marching on Washington, shoulder-to-shoulder with 2,000,000 (or 65,000—80,000) "informed" and "outraged" fellow citizens, a "cross-section" of Americans (strangely, all white) in a "nonpartisan" (per Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC) protest against, well, a whole bunch of stuff. Senator DeMint declared, "I’ve never been so proud to be an American.” Must've been awesome!

Although I missed the march, I have a few simple suggestions for the Republican lobbyist organizers spontaneously-combusting grass-root tea-bagging patriots that might make their next event even more eventful. I'm offering these suggestions as a communications professional and an elementary school graduate.

Suggestion #1:

Check your spelling before you haul out the poster board and magic markers. I think the word wanted here is "moron." With two os.

Suggestion #2:

Review your "-isms." I know, it's confusing, but there must be Cliff Notes about this stuff somewhere. Short version: Socialism, Communism, National Socialism, Marxism, Fascism, Cretinism etc. are not interchangeable. Who knew?

Not him...

 

...or these folks...

...or this guy.

Which brings us to suggestion # 3:

A brief review of history would also be helpful before you get to the poster-making stage. There were no czars at all in the USSR, silly! The Bolsheviks made a big point of shooting the last one, along with his wife, children and assorted other members of the extended Romanov family. That's right, Communists bearing arms, just like we do!

Wonder where she misplaced it? Girlfriend, I am with you on the issue of forgetfulness. I have the same problem with my reading glasses. I rarely completely forget about punctuation, though.

These nice people good-naturedly left their firearms behind when they were forced (sorry, that's FORCED) to sacrifice their weekend. This time, anyway.

Suggestions #4 and #5

Check at least the very basic facts, and...

 

...keep the message clear and unambiguous. Sister, that sign is simply confusing. Underneath Obama's lipstick he's still a Socialist? Are you sure that lipstick smear wouldn't be more appropriate for...

 

(Where's your apostrophe, big fella?)
...Barney Frank, Representative for Massachusetts 4th Congressional District since 1981? Big-brained gay Democrat widely considered to be one of the most powerful members of Congress and one of the most energetic defenders of civil rights issues? Ol' Barney might as well hang it up on that civil rights thing, because as we are assured, this protest is not about race (or homophobia). No no no:

 

Hint #6:

It's much harder to wave the flag when it's been cut up to cover your ass. Unless you—oh, never mind.

Hint #7:

Avoid introducing topics/comparisons that might generate blowback...

...like this. Ouch!

Hope all y'all find these easy tricks o' the communication trade helpful for your next spontaneous, pride-inducing, grass-roots patriotic event free from subtexts of racism, xenophobia and/or threatened violence. Or reality! 

You're welcome.
Thank you NineTwelvePhotos

Wednesday Rotogravure: The False Azure of the Windowpane

At home in Marin County this weekend, we heard a surprisingly loud thwump! as a hummingbird flew into one of the glass doors and fell, stunned, to the deck. Murphy promptly stuffed the creature into his mouth, but we pried open his jaws and rescued it. The bird was panting hard but not bleeding—the red patch on his throat is feathers.

You can see his tongue hanging out.

We improvised a recovery room in one of the candle lanterns to keep him safe from Murphy while we finished our coffee and Answerjack read the paper. Me, I went inside and got my copy of Pale Fire, which opens with the amazing lines "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/By the false azure of the windowpane..." The bird was beating his wings against the glass before I reached the end of the poem, we opened the lantern door and he flew away, having survived collision, capture by cat and confinement, a lucky little string of alliteration. I bet his blog entry was exciting. You can read the rest of "John Shade's"/Nabokov's poem here.

A brief pause while Murphy re-armed, and then Answer had to extract a lizard from Murph's mouth, which he popped into a wineglass. Not sure why; perhaps for just this picture?

The halo effect.

The serial killer himself, in the false azure (sort of) of the mirror.

More weekend excitement: Jessica and John had a minor nautical misadventure on the Bay and wound up at our house in the middle of the night. They crept in silently on little cat feet; in the morning, Anabel's sea-going gear let us know J & J were upstairs asleep in the guest room.

My 11-year-old mother and her Aunt Gene, onboard a ferry on Lake Michigan, 1940...

I am completely out of patience with the damn deer. They chomp their way right up to the front door, barely stopping short of ringing the bell and demanding food and drink.

Marin does a great job of moonrises. This, from the big deck, where to-the-death struggles—Murphy vs. rodents, lizards and birds; deer vs. gardens; humans vs deer; raccoons vs. everyone—are taking place in the mysterious dark, to the cheerful chirp of crickets.

Wednesday Rotogravure: Minnesota, Fair Enough

Last weekend, Answerjack and I met up in Minneapolis, where Jon and Mandra live, to go to the Minnesota State Fair.

Improbable battered deep-fried foods, mostly impaled on sticks, are big at state fairs. Here Jon and I are enjoying fried candy bars—Reese's Peanut Butter Cups—as Jack apparently recalls all that data about cholesterol and health risk in the AMA journal he read on the flight to MSP. Yum!

Jon's on a roll now: that's a strip of chocolate-covered bacon in his hand. It's actually pretty good.

 

Fortified with fat, salt and sugar, we hit the animal exhibits.

Jack makes a new friend and shares his Red Sox cap.

Perhaps the goat is a Twins fan.

 

The uneasy intersection between Little Bo Peep and Abu Ghraib.

Pompadour maintenance.
 

Horses, cunningly miniaturized.

Source code DNA.

A shallow display pool stocked with Minnesota sport fish of a size that would grant bragging rights in perpetuity.

Away from the fair, more civilized dining. Mandra is three weeks away from delivery and is possibly the most light-on-her-feet pregnant woman on the planet.

We passed on all fair rides—see pregnant woman, above, plus Jack is prone to motion sickness. Here is my mother Doris at the Back of the Yards Fair, Chicago 1933.

Great-aunt Gene and another ferris wheel, 1934.

Sheep o' the Week, at the fair...

Deer of The Week, by Beatrix Potter, from BibliOdyssey. Yep, we're back to hostile depictions: While I was at the fair, deer came to our front door in Marin to graze on the contents of the big planter there. At the front door. Plus they ate all the ferns that were out of the range of the motion sensor, and deer don't even like ferns.

Inside the house, mice, possibly some of Murphy's escaped prey, tried to make a pot of coffee.

Probably not quite as adorable a raid as this.

Wednesday Rotogravure: Housewarming and Harvest Time

We had a housewarming this week—a little late, as we've been here for a bit more than a year, but it's been an eventful year.

Very few pictures of the party, since thoughtful hosts barely have time to duck into the loo, much less take photos, but toward the end of the evening John took a few. Here Answerjack is checking out a raccoon sighting on the deck. He's wearing his favorite Jeremy Fish T-shirt. I like the way the little man looks like he's parachuting into Jack's wine glass.

And here, after checking out the vodka bar (ginger-infused, raspberry-infused and straight-up Ketel One) Jessica is giving her Paternicus a piggyback ride. In addition to being smart, talented and gorgeous, my kid is also strong like bull.

Another view of the ride....

...reminded me of this pillow.

Jessica and her mother are pretending to be savage raccoons. Are there any other kind?

Not so savage.

The tomatoes are coming in nicely...

Very nicely. Here is this morning's harvest, with hundreds to go. We grow them in wine barrels on a second-story deck. If the deer and raccoons ever learn to levitate, it's all over.

 My Great-Grandfather Oscar Tatro in 1937, picking an orange from his grove in Burbank. There's no one left to explain how/why Oscar moved briefly to the LA area back when it was a paradise of citrus groves and clear skies and then returned to the gritty South Side of Chicago for his twilight years.

Great-Aunt Gene and a cross-dressing chum, Chicago, 1919.

Little-known fact: at age 20, Aunt Gene was married for about a nanosecond. This is the only picture of her husband, a supernumerary in her life's long narrative. He's identified on the back of the photo as E. Jennings.

 

Deer of the Week. No skulls or WMD; now that I've won the battle, I can afford to be generous.

And the Sheep o' the Week, a housewarming present from my friend Pamela. He's a netsuke that looks suspiciously like a goat, but close enough.

Wednesday Rotogravure: The Birthday

Had a lovely birthday weekend...

A Champagne cork landed at Minx's paws, and the old girl—18 and counting—barely blinked, much less moved. She's a role model.

 

Answerjack seemed a little distracted, though. That's Jessica in the background, making plum upside down birthday cake.

Natalia is feeding Murphy some of her shrimp escabeche at the dinner table. That's right, we live like muleskinners.

More Champagne the next day, this time on the ferry into the city for dinner at Boulevard. Note the handy wrist straps on cunning little bottles: perfect for celebrating on the go.
 

Answerjack arranged for flowers to be waiting at our table; I love lillies. We are lucky to be living through the second coming of the cocktail. And dinner was fantastic.

The ferry is a very civilized way to travel. I've lived in and around San Francisco for most of my adult life, and  I still get a little frisson every time I see the waterfront. It's true love, all right.

Aging is not what it used to be. This picture was in my mother's things, marked "Aunt Matilda" on the back, but I'm pretty sure she's just some random pioneer woman. We all, each and every one of us, should take a moment to offer a silent hymn of praise for the blessing of sunscreen.

This is more like it. Great-Aunt Gene is in her mid-sixties here. Forget Minx, Gene's a better role model.

Serendipitously, this was on BibliOdyssey just in time for my birthday. It's titled A 30 Ans—A 60 Ans (At 30 years—At 60 years) from a series of 6 prints by Honoré Daumier published in 1838. Hey, I can do that, sort of:

Actually, I think I'm about 32 in the picture on the left. Full disclosure: no Photoshop on either image, but I sure lucked out on the lighting.

After having lately triumphed in the battle with the deer and the raccoons over a small section of turf, I walked out early this morning to find this fellow hanging out on the rear deck. He's pretty tame and extremely adorable; my guess is he's someone's pet (or dinner) gone rogue.

Deer of the Week, taken through the window of the car. They're undeniably cute when they're little, but next year he'll be just another garden-chomping pain in the butt.

Sheep O' The Week: Annabelle, The Queen of the Collection. I think the kids helped her with the printing...

And so to bed: an exceptionally lovely moonrise.

#

Wednesday Rotogravure: Fleurs du Mal and a Couple of Cigars

This bird of paradise in the back yard has just bloomed. I'm pretty sure the lack of pigment is not normal; the plant is dripping some sort of sticky goo.

It would go well with one of these lovelies, which I used to have but are hard to keep alive: the bat flower.

I have a big birthday coming up in 5 days. The story on this picture, taken to commemorate my first birthday, is that my mother asked, "Where are the airplanes?" the answer to which I know only too well.

These are my paternal grandparents, Julia and Antony, at the wedding of one of their 5 kids. They're in their fifties in this picture; life was a lot harder in those days.

Two generations later: Answerjack and me at the wedding of one of our kids (Ravi to Megumi). Answer is watching the progress of the sake, which is part of the ceremony.

It seems to be the rule with old-time photographs that the men are having more fun than the women. Here's Antony channeling Maurice Chevalier...

And here is my great-grandfather Oscar, smoking a cigar. Why is it that so many of my male relatives were photographed holding or sucking a cigar?

Let's ask the expert. My, his pants are shiny.

The one woman who seemed to know how to have fun: great- aunt Gene, circa 1930. That horse is a big show-off. See the hoof?

The raccoons (not this one—this is a shot by Corey Arnold) sent an envoy the other night, probably to protest the lack of amenities in the yard since I installed the motion-sensor sprinkler. Sorry guys. Not really.

They messed with my ride.

Deer of the Week, by Georgia O'Keefe...

Sheep o' the Week, from the collection...

And Murphy, mercifully without anything in his mouth.

#

Wed. Rot. on Thursday: Scavengers, Predators and Pests

This saucy fellow hangs out at a lobster pound in Southwest Harbor, Maine, hustling handouts. Scavenger, predator or pest?

When in Memphis, we spend our Sunday mornings at Flying Fish: 2 dozen gulf oysters, a bottle of Pinot Grigio and the NYT. These aren't Marin Miyagis, but they're very tasty with green Tabasco. Preachers in general: scavengers, predators or pests?

Middle-aged guru wannabe attempting to co-opt your 10-year-old: scavenger, predator or pest? All three.

Families who eat bottom-feeders by the bushel: definitely scavengers. Here we are at Jessica and Johns place in San Francisco, after a feast of blue crab, a perverse preference in Dungeness country.

Murphy is famous because of this picture. No, it's not Photoshop'ed; he cornered the mouse on an amaryllis bud—a predator taking out a pest. Since it falls to me to clean up the remains, I guess that makes me the scavenger.

The most challenging scavenge ever: this was behind the refrigerator, waiting for me when I got back from vacation this week. Thanks, Murphy. Heads up if you click to enlarge: it's truly disgusting. Those little white things? Maggots. Who knew they could move so fast?

Some rats are neither pest, predator or scavenger. Manny the Rat here accompanied us on our cross-country journey when we were briefly exiled to Baltimore.

Here he is at Crater Lake, in Oregon...

...and enjoying some river or another in Idaho. This was in Manny's prime.

Alas, Manny is the latest rodent casualty, quietly going to pieces at the ripe old age of 10. Plus you can see he's got osteoporosis. We'll lay him to rest when Answer gets home.

Deer o' the Week: definitely pest.

And the Sheep of the Week, from the collection. This one is large, and lives on top of a bookcase.

Plus bonus collectible: a spawn of Manny. This one lives in front of our house in Marin County.

Postscript:

 

Murphy's catch of the day, discovered just after posting. He's an Alpha predator who can be deceptively endearing:

 

Does he look like a serial killer?

#