Happy New Year!

Although there is a terrific sounding party over at MP's today where many of my friends will be, there is bad weather predicted again...so I am likely to stay in and cheer myself with a bottle of Porter.

Hope all are safe and looking forward to a New Year.

Cheers!

PS - Special greetings to Baby Jack, this his very first New Year!

Michelangelo's grocery list

It is amazing what mediabistro brings to my day.

via Bibliokept

Kelly McMasters first brought mediabistro to my attention in one of her Paris Review essays. 

Edgar Allan Poe and the mountain fog

The Morgan Library & Museum once more has a fascinating exhibit this month, and until January 26 of Edgar Allan Poe's works and related works by authors he influenced.

Energetic adventures not forthcoming, yet I might give a try for the Poe National Historical site, part of the Parks Department, in Pennsylvania, where Poe was most happy.

Dickens, too, is on exhibit.

At holiday season I do miss New York City.

And here in the lower Catskills on the Delaware we've had warm weather up until yesterday and today a light sprinkle of snow.   But for several days the fog was dense and nearly impossible to follow along even on the highway.

Writing in Isolation: Prison Memoir

It is remarkable to think that in 1858, an imprisoned man in Auburn (New York) could muster up 304 pages of life in prison, but Austin Reed did.

New York Times ©

Uncovered recently and now at Yale, the manuscript must be quite the eye full as it is handwritten, and undoubtedly a challenge to read, and now it is to be published.

It makes me think of my own struggle with writing.   Before the internet, I could sit down at a typewriter or an early computer, and write for ages.  Now I get distracted not by isolation but by popping emails, and searches for this or that.

When I had a place in the mountains, years ago, I would go there on weekends and write, often late into the night, with perhaps the radio on.  We didn't have much of a television.

I managed more than 300 pages, but these days it is difficult for me to meet my own schedule of one hour or 1000 words.

Yesterday, landlocked by snow and no car, I managed just over one thousand words, and the time seemed to fly by.

I am hoping to disengage and continue that pace.

Gifts for readers: non-traditional charities

Mediabistro published a list of 10 charities who encourage reading.

When I left New York seven years ago (time does fly) I donated more than 25 boxes of books to Books to Prisoners.

Two young strapping guys showed up, took the boxes with one arm, and carried them away, joyful at the bounty, and it wasn't even

Christmas!

Streetwise ©

So if you have books you aren't reading and want some book shelf, perhaps you'd consider donating to one of these charities.

Science Fiction Museum...in the development stage

According to Wired [via mediabistro], we might have a Science Fiction Museum in Washington, D.C.

Jules Verne's studio © (via Wired)

In the early stages of raising funds.

So What about the Affordable Care Act is Working?

I just received two notices in the mail.

The first notice is that my insurance premium has gone up---not down.

And the second notice is that there are additional restrictions on my prescription plan.

New York State was touted as a State where insurance rates were decreasing.  Perhaps not so true as my plan is a retiree plan from New York State. 

So, how is the Affordable Care Act working?

Gobble, Gobble: Bread & Circus

Even after all these years I call "Whole Foods" "Bread & Circus" because I am stubborn and object to the gobbling up of the small or smallish in favour of the bigger, and biggest.

I first was introduced to Bread & Circus by my friend, Sherry Ryan, who lived on the East Side of Providence and could practically walk over, and perhaps she did.   When they opened I lived about 5 miles away but later I, too, lived in walking distance--at least on a good day.

One bad day, during a hurricane, one big enough to have the Mayor close the roads, Ed and I were stranded Downtown.  Being Ed, he got into that crazy jeep and rushed over to the grocer to get some provisions least we starve.   I worried when he didn't come back, quickly, phoned up and they paged him and sent him back to the studio, thus relieving my concerns and the Mayor's dictate.

I liked that.

I also liked the fact that when I moved to Western Massachusetts, they, too, had a Bread & Circus on rte 9, between Amherst & Northampton--so utterly convenient as I was working 3 counties and traveled that road almost daily, occasionally more often.

Brookline Store, 1975

I still have my two woven, bright green string Bread & Circus shoppers, and use them frequently.

But now I also have a yellow "Whole Foods" plastic bag I got in Pittsburgh.

Now it seems Whole Foods is opening all over, including Brooklyn.

What will it do to the Mom & Pop food stores all over Brooklyn who already sell "good food," "specialty items" and unusable vegetables and fruits.

Will they go out of business?  How much will they suffer for the turkeys that always gobble, gobble.

Early Kremer Pigments Palette

Certainly not the first, but among the early adopters of the Kremer palette, I was disappointed two times and remain disappointed.

I bought a palette somewhere between 2004-06, can't recall what year.  The first had cracked paint in a matter of days.  Returned it.   The second also developed the same issues.

Kremer Palette (closed)

Cracked colours

Full palette

Now here are photos of the third and last of the palettes.   Too late to return and I wonder what with so many talking about the Kremer and buying it, if it has improved.