Easiest Decision of the Week

We're in the process of hiring an editor for our weekly, which would reduce my workload down to editing TWO papers, though I'd still supervise that one. Here is a cover letter we received yesterday. Bear in mind that one of the necessary skills listed in the job application included computer literacy. Aside from sending out a form letter instead of actually saying why he'd like this particular job, I don't think he realized there was something attached at the bottom.

With the obvious redaction of personal information, his letter follows in its entirety:

F O R
I M M E D I A T E
A T T E N T I O N

M*** M. S***
(street address)
Portland, ME 04101
(phone number)

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing for the opportunity of a position with your Company. I have enclosed for your consideration a personal Resume detailing my education and professional experience. I have considerable experience in film and television production, media relations, and as a writer, editor and performer for a rather varied professional, business and creative clientele.

My work has been wide-ranging, and has accustomed me to a diversity of people, places and perspectives. I have a keen ear, a sharp eye, very sound aesthetic judgment and polished communications skills. I am looking for a position which will afford me the opportunity to wed professional obligation with creative instinct.

Thank you for taking the time to review the enclosed material. I would enjoy very much the opportunity to meet with you, introduce myself and answer any additional questions you may have. I believe I can make a significant contribution to your Company, your clients and your nterests.

Cordially,
M*** M. S***

Enclosure

=================================

How about: "We just want a first-rate Writer/Editor and we'll take a little time to teach you the "embroidery?"

This attitude wouldn't, per chance, have anything to do with this State hemorrhaging TALENT -- now would it?

God, you people are THICK -- not to mention provincial ...

Drop dead!

MMS

My favorite also-ran

(Aaaargh: after getting some very nice comments, I discovered that I had a faulty list of years -- it had listed her films by the year they competed in the Oscars rather than the year they were released -- so that, when I went back to see who she lost to, the competition was mismatched.
Edits are in italics.)

When I heard today that Deborah Kerr had died, my reaction was "damn." Deborah Kerr was one of those actors who just seemed to pop up in a whole lot of really good movies. She was also in some not really good movies that were a whole lot of fun, too.

One of my early favorites was "Beloved Infidel," in which she played Sheilah Graham to Gregory Peck's F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was a fairly faithful rendering of Graham's self-serving, ahistorical memoir. But I saw it at a time when I was just getting into the concept of being a writer, and was still several years away from finding out what Scott was like, what Zelda was like and what Sheilah was like. Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

She also played the romantic lead opposite Stewart Granger in "Prisoner of Zenda," the lifeless remake of the much better original that starred Ronald Colman and Madeleine Carroll. Madeleine who? Oh, never mind. The real flaw was that they cast James Mason as Rupert of Hentzau, the wonderful villain earlier played by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., then had to speed up the film to make the fencing sequences look exciting. Should have sped up the whole film -- Every single actor in this movie appeared in something much, much better.

Certainly, Deborah Kerr appeared in many films better than those two. But somehow she managed to set an Oscar record -- the most nominations for Best Actress without a win (6). For the most part, it was bad timing.

Take a look:

1949 (not 1950)
Edward, My Son

Okay, I haven't seen this one, but she starred opposite Spencer Tracy, so it must have been pretty good. However, the award went to ... Judy Holliday for "Born Yesterday." Talk about being nominated in the wrong year! If they gave out Academy Awards by decade, Judy Holliday would have deserved that one.

1953 (not 1954)
From Here to Eternity

And the winner is ... Grace Kelly for "The Country Girl." I think she might have reason to be bitter over this one, because the scene above is a classic of Hollywood filmography. But that's one scene in a long movie, and Kelly was the Golden Girl. There's always next year.

Well, here's a distinction without a difference: She lost to Audrey Hepburn in "Roman Holiday." Hepburn did some nice work, of course, and there could be a more interesting argument over this one. For my part, I think "From Here to Eternity" had a bit more meat to it, and, comparing the two roles, involved more heavy lifting.

1956 (Not 1957)
The King and I

You would think if there were a role that screamed "Oscar!" it would be this one. I mean, if "My Fair Lady" could pick off eight Oscars, you'd think Kerr could win for "The King and I"? After all, Marni Nixon sang the lead in both films! And it was a fun film with quotable lines, singable songs and terrific costuming. Isn't that the sort of thing that wins Oscars by the bushel basket?

And the winner is ... Joanna Woodward for "The Three Faces of Eve."

Maybe they need more categories. That's hardly fair.

She lost to Ingrid Bergman in "Anastasia." I'd have rather lost to Woodward. Bergman was great, and this was a good flick, but it wasn't her best work, and you could do a whole other post about the roles Bergman won for versus the ones she was nominated for.

Incidentally, Yul Brynner was in both "Anastasia" and "The King and I." He took home "Best Actor" for ... "The King and I." It is a puzzlement.

But speaking of "wait until next year ... " we are now getting into what must have been an absolutely agonizing phase. Watch the dates as we go along.

1957 (not 1958)
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

This was such an entertaining concept: Bad boy Robert Mitchum on a desert island with Deborah Kerr, not only a beautiful British ice queen, but a nun! Plus it was patriotic and exciting ... how could it miss?

And the winner is ... Susan Hayward for "I Want to Live."

Okay, this one is a ripoff. I've seen both movies, and Hayward was getting a lifetime achievement award, just as John Wayne got when he won Best Actor for "True Grit." I love Susan Hayward, but if this was her breakthrough role, she didn't ever break through.

(This is the one she lost to Joanna Woodward. No argument -- Wrong place, wrong time.)

So, wait until next year ...

1958 (not 1959)
Separate Tables

Now, here's a serious role. They can't deny her this time!

And the winner is ... Simone Signoret for "Room at the Top." And that, by golly, was a very serious role.

(THIS is the one she lost to Susan Hayward. That really compounds the sleight.)

Hey, there will be other chances.

1960 (Not 1961)
The Sundowners

I won't defend this one. They reunited her with Bobby Mitchum again, but it's no favor. The idea of either of them as Aussies was unconvincing at best. I have had chances to see this movie and haven't gotten through it yet. It's got its fans, but putting it up for five Oscars was, I think, a stretch. And, anyway, she could have put on the performance of a lifetime, because she was up against a juggernaut.

And the winner is ... Sophia Loren for "Two Women."

Not gonna win that one, no matter what you turn in.

(And you could repeat that for the actual winner -- Elizabeth Taylor for "Butterfield 8," though I think Loren worked harder for hers. However, either is a buzzsaw, and "The Sundowners" wasn't in the same weight class as either film.)

Finally, in 1994, the Academy gave her a special award, and I think it was well-deserved for someone who showed up and, whatever the quality of the material she was given, turned in a good, and sometimes an inspired, performance.

There's no moral here, no fine philosophical point to be made. Well, except that I have always thought that awards were pretty stupid. The regional writing awards I've won were for relatively ho-hum work, while the stuff I was proud of got nothing. I imagine, out there on the international stage, that a lot of actors feel the same way.

Deborah Kerr had very good reason to feel that way.

Ah, well. As Bob Dylan said in "Don't Look Back," "Applause is kind of bullshit."

Not a word I would expect to hear coming from Deborah Kerr, mind you, but she might have thought it a few times on Oscar night.

Photographing Four

Here is a photograph of my four granddaughters, taken at the littlest one's first birthday party yesterday in Vermont. This is not the only picture I took of them, of course. Getting all four to look in the same direction was a challenge, and I ended up taking about a dozen shots, all but two now deleted.

The mathematicians who drop by can figure out a formula for the number of shots it takes to take a good picture of a given number of granddaughters, factoring in their ages, but what I know is that it's not easy, at least not now.

As they grow older, however, I expect it to grow somewhat easier.

However, these four will likely never be any more cooperative than they were yesterday. The two brown ones, constant readers will realize, are my own. The standing dog is my older son's, the sitting dog my younger son's. I won't put their names in because the Internet is full of canine predators who would then appear in Chris Hansen's back yard with Milk Bones, calling to them.

I worked for about two minutes to get a shot of the four of them sitting and facing the same direction. Then I decided to modify my goal to see if I could get a shot of the four of them sitting at the same time, no matter which direction they were facing. I won't say how long I spent on that.

The problem was that I could stand in one place and reach three dogs, but never the fourth. So, when I'd get three of them sitting, I'd have to leave to grab the fourth dog, and at least one of the sitting dogs would either decide to come see what I was going to do, or would decide the sitting session had ended or would simply lose focus and drift away.

This is a good example of shutter lag. I swear, when I pushed the shutter button, there were four dogs sitting. (I am well aware that my children will refuse to confirm this, which is one of the disadvantages of not having the right sort of relationship with them.)


I remain convinced it can be done. Here are three dogs in a photo taken about 10 years ago, when the one in the middle was the youngest, rather than the eldest, as he is in the other shot here. Three is not that difficult. Can adding one more dog change it from challenging to impossible?

Apparently.

The question of how many more small granddaughters you can add before things go completely out of control, I will leave to my children.

Mr. Big Stuff

I go through a certain routine each morning, with about 20 stops all set up in tabs on my Firefox page. This morning, I visited Sandra Bell Lundy's blog, where she has been recounting how she managed to get her comic strip, "Between Friends," into syndication. She talked about calling the managing editor of the Toronto Star, and (not to steal her thunder -- go read it) having him turn out to be a self-important putz.

The next tab in my daily sequence happens to be the Huffington Post, where they had posted this merciless, insightful and hilarious Jon Stewart interview with (or, if you prefer, "evisceration of") one of America's most self-important putzes, Chris Matthews, who has written a book about how to be a self-important putz!

I feel like I've been to a workshop on the topic, and it's not even 5 a.m. yet.

A working weekend

The picture above will likely be the cover of the next issue of the Rangeley Highlander. It was taken on a river about 12 miles out of town, some 70 or 80 miles into a Saturday in which I just drove around looking for what in our business are called "grab shots" -- random photos you can use to show the weather or things people were up to on a particular day. For those who want to follow along, though the photos are in conceptual rather than chronological or geographic order, I went up through Kingfield on Route 27 to Stratton, then over on Route 16 to Rangeley and back home on Route 4, a total of about 130 miles or so.

I'll be working in the office tomorrow -- interspersed with some time to walk dogs and a break to catch a football game. But today was more of the opposite -- driving around enjoying the weather broken up by a few moments of taking pictures for work. It averages out in the end.



Moose are more dangerous at night because, while deer are light brown, moose are black and people really don't see them in time. The fact that they are also considerably larger than deer means that hitting them is no joke and there are a few fatalities each year among people who run into one, or (as often) who run into someone who had just run into one. People don't hit them as often during the day, though it does happen.

However, I didn't even see one, much less run into one today. Having a camera at the ready is probably a jinx.


Here are the dogs at the Wire Bridge, which was built in 1866 and is a local tourist attraction, though it's a bit off the main highway, on a piece of road that isn't necessary unless you actually live on it or want to go see the Wire Bridge. But there were a few of us who wanted to do just that, though not enough to get in each other's way.

Speaking of which, I am quite pleased at the way Mainers become rapturous over this time of year -- no matter how many years they've been here, they seem just as pleased to see the leaves turning as any one "from away" and they go to see the leaves just as enthusiastically as the tourists.



I blogged a photo of this stretch of the Carrabassett River a few weeks ago. It hasn't become any less attractive with the loss of chorophyll along its banks.



This is part of a set of falls just south of Rangeley called "Small's Falls" that are just off the road. There is a picnic area, trails, a few interpretative signs, etc., and it's quite popular. There were probably a dozen cars there, and people of every age.



Walking up to the falls, I came across this "stairway" of exposed roots. With all my clambering down river banks and so forth, it was about the best footing I had all day. Not sure it's good for the trees, but they've been around for years, so I suppose it isn't too bad for them, either.



I was struck by the "grooves" in the rocks towards the top of the falls. You can see the texture, and I assume this is some kind of an uplift, so that the layers are facing up rather than laying horizontally, and that there is enough variation in the minerals of the various layers that some are worn down by the water more rapidly than others. To give a sense of scale, while I didn't bother to count the needles in each bundle, these are either red or white pine needles and so about three inches long. Note also the curve and smoothly worn edge where the water runs next to the rock. Just beyond the edge, where you see the water disappear, is a fall of 30 feet or so.



Two sisters and the daughter of one of them were taking their own picture by the edge of the falls. The dark-haired sister had just set the timer and run back -- you can possibly make out their camera delicately perched in a tiny finger-thickness sapling -- quite ingenious. This is probably going to run on the front page of the Franklin Journal Tuesday, unless Sheila comes in tomorrow with something brilliant. After I took this, I went down and took a couple of shots of them with their camera, too. However, since the little girl was refusing to look straight at the scary man, the one they took with the tree stuck up in the sapling may be the best anyway.



Finally, here is something you may never have seen before, but how on earth can you do without it now? It's a 1952 Bombardier ... well, it's not a Ski-doo, but that's the company. They invented snowmobiles but wouldn't market the first of the small runabouts for another seven years. I would suspect this particular one transported skiers and other tourists, but they were used in Quebec for more mundane things like taking kids to school -- the back has two built-in facing benches, the front is a bench seat like a bus.

This was at a place that restores snowmobiles, and the first of the snowmobiles beyond this big one is more like what I was used to see running around the woods when I was a kid. But I want this one. It's only $7,500 and, according to the sign, "runs good." It even comes with an extra set of skis.

But that's for the next season. I'm going to enjoy autumn while it lasts.

This was two weeks ago.

This was last weekend.

Autumn arrived in a week. These two pictures were taken along the same stretch of the trail where the dogs and I walk. The one on top shows green leaves just showing a bit of yellow tone. A week later, you can see how much the leaves have changed.

Things are getting beautiful here and I wish I had more reasons to just drive around and marvel at it all. I have asked people if I'm wrong about the speed of the change, but most agree -- It's as if the leaves were holding back and then, pow, just took off. What everyone is hoping is that they'll stay on the trees until most of them have changed. They are starting to fall, but slowly.

Incidentally, I'm finding that apples are not nearly as big a part of the local economy as they are in the Champlain Valley of New York, but the people who do grow them seem to grow more varieties -- Galas and Honey Crisps and new types like that. There are some pretty good apples at the roadside stands here.

This is the time of year I missed most when I lived out west. The weather has been a little too warm, but we'll have some nice crisp days soon enough. Meanwhile, the scenery still blows my mind, 20 autumns after I came back to the Northeast.

Life imitates comics

The Speed Bump comic above ran in 2000. The story story below ran last week. Pity the poor cartoonists: The world is becoming ridiculous at a pace that makes it very difficult for them to keep ahead.

YONKERS - The spooked cat that was stuck 60-feet high in a willow for a week was at last blasted out of the tree last night by a high pressure water hose and landed - soaked but perfectly safe - into an outstretched sheet.

"It was so exciting," says Yonkers artist and animal rescuer Greg Speirs, who was among the crowd of 50 people assembled at the foot of the tree on Rockledge Place. "Everyone was cheering."

Before the cat came down, a crew from the Yonkers Fire Fepartment took a shot into the tree with the water hose and missed the furry target.

The volunteers watched where the water fell on the other side of the tree and adjusted the location of the outstretched sheet, Speirs said.

Good thing, because the next shot knocked the orange and white kitty clear out of the tree and perfectly into the safety blanket.

"As soon as the cat landed it jumped out and ran into the woods," said Speirs this morning, still animated about the dramatic dinner-time rescue. "Some kids helped us bring the cat back, and a man said he would adopt the cat right on the spot."

The cat seemed to be more hungry than anything else, chomping handful after handful of cat food, Speirs said.

"You can't come up with a nicer ending than that," he said.

(Thursday's "Lio" by Mark Tatulli, reminded me of this column I wrote nearly 10 years ago. The granddaughter, now in sixth grade, has turned out to be well able to see through
commercial hype and comment perceptively about it.)

Poohaphernalia just another storybook sell-out

My granddaughter loves Pooh.
"Pooh!" she says, as we walk through the mall together, and there are many opportunities for her to point him out.
Pooh is everywhere, selling everything.
She's not old enough for the original books, for "Winnie the Pooh" or "House at Pooh Corners," but there are a lot of Pooh picture books, videos, clothing, toys and so forth geared for someone about to turn two, and, like every other toddler in America, she has been showered with Poohaphernalia by all her friends and relations.
In fact, by the time she's old enough for the A.A. Milne books, she'll probably know so much about Pooh that she won't want to bother with slower-paced, less hilarious versions of the bear. We can probably skip those gentle, wise witty sources of make-believe and go straight to, oh, I don't know, maybe Snoopy or Garfield.
The rich, wonderful stories that once warmed our children's hearts and fired their imaginations have been glitzed up, dumbed down and turned into profit centers.
It's certainly not just Pooh. When NBC sought to turn Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books into a TV series, producer Ed Friendly approached Roger McBride, the adopted son of Laura's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, and current holder of the rights.
McBride was reportedly afraid of seeing his grandmother's stories turned into Hollywood glitz, but Friendly assured him of the respect he had for the originals, and persuaded him to allow the project to proceed.
The pilot was a made-for-TV movie that followed the first book faithfully, and the first few episodes of the series picked up the storyline of "On the Banks of Plum Creek."
Then Michael Landon took over creative control of the program, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's version of her own life was thrown on the trash heap along with her champion, Ed Friendly. The resulting TV series was politically correct, historically ridiculous and immensely popular.
Now we're seeing the television ads that came from Maurice Sendak's sale to Bell Atlantic of his 1963 classic children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are."
A December, 1997 press release from Bell Atlantic crowed over the Wild Things "first appearance in mass media advertising:"
"The book is a fitting metaphor for the current state of the communications industry. This campaign will remind Bell Atlantic's customers - and reassure them, too - that we are there for them through this figurative jungle of communications choices."
Well, maybe. It reminds me that nothing is sacred when it comes to making a buck. I am reassured that the most precious moments of childhood are available for the right price.
More often, the kids sell out. It was the heirs of A.A. Milne and Laura Ingalls Wilder who let those wonderful visions be sold for a mess of pottage.
Christopher Robin Milne was an unhappy child who hated being identified with the Pooh stories, so it's hardly surprising he was willing to cash in his inheritance.
And, if McBride didn't mean to betray Laura, her innocent pioneer memoirs had already been edited and shaped by her politically minded daughter to emphasize the hardy independence of orthodox Libertarian ideology.
Sendak's business decision is like those bumperstickers that say, "We're spending our children's inheritance." He sold out so he could enjoy the profits himself.
But why not? After all, he wrote the books to make a living, and kid's authors are under no obligation to be idealists.
Nor are they, often. For instance, Danny Kaye's movie and the Central Park statue notwithstanding, Hans Christian Anderson was no child-cuddling storyteller. He didn't even like writing children's stories, but he could make a living writing that stuff, and, apparently, couldn't make one writing what he preferred.
Generations of kids didn't know any of that, though. Whatever flaws their authors possessed were irrelevant, whatever motivations lurked behind their writing were invisible. You couldn't tell from the outside. None of it was inherent in the stories.
The stories were sweet and imaginative, and they created dreams, they inspired make-believe, they made children think about things beyond the specific images contained in them. They were part of a fading world of imagination and storytelling.
Today, our children grow up in a world of commercialism, little more than a target demographic to which simplified, shallow, market-tested images are spoonfed.
Theirs is a world in which Pooh is a cartoon character, the Wild Things sell telephones, Laura is in syndication and the only time storytelling involves a rocking chair is when you pull it over in front of the VCR.

copyright 1998, Press-Republican, Plattsburgh NY

A Young Man's Game

A while ago, I wrote about how the Houston Texans' new runningback Ahman Green and long-time defender Jason Simmons worked out a conflict over uniform numbers, with Green, at Simmons' suggestion, buying the rights to Number 30 by helping a single mother purchase a home.

Well, no good deed goes unpunished. Yesterday, having proved his off-field class, Simmons finally got a chance to ramp up his on-field status as well. Here, from the Houston Chronicle, is how it went:

Texans safety Jason Simmons had waited 10 NFL seasons before he was named a starter heading into opening day.

When the special day finally came Sunday, it turned into a nightmare.

Simmons' season came to a premature end in the second quarter of the Texans' 20-3 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs after the strong safety tore his left patellar tendon.

"I just was going to avoid a lineman and put my foot in the ground, and it just gave way," Simmons said. "Nothing more to it, just a freak accident. I was so upset. You finally get your chance — I wait to start my whole career — but I never could question God's timing. I'm fine."

Still a pretty classy guy, but this is the kind of injury that would be better happening to a 21-year-old rookie than a 31-year-old veteran.

At this stage of life, 31 seems awfully young, but it's not young when your body is your instrument, and it reminded me of a conversation I had back when a friend from college, Austin Carr, was playing in the NBA and his team came to Denver. I was going to say I was just about 31, but looking him up, I see that he had his jersey retired about four weeks before I hit that age, and, poking around a little more, I see that he and I were 27 and 28 respectively at the time.

Another friend from the college team was living in Denver then, so the two of us met Austin after the game for a beer, and Fatty Taylor, one of the Denver Nuggets, came over and sat with us. He and Carr started talking about Bobby Jones, the young Nuggets phenom who was the talk of the league that year -- and who was only 5 years younger than Taylor, 3 years younger than Austin and 2 years younger than me.

Austin had attracted some media attention at the time for being a vegetarian, which in 1977 was pretty unusual for a professional athlete, but he was serious about tuning the instrument. I mentioned to him that Kathy and I had gone veggie until she got pregnant, at which point her OB/GYN told her there were certain amino acids necessary for fetal brain development that you could only get in meat. Austin nodded, but then named three things you could add to a vegetarian diet that would fill that gap -- one was watercress, I can't remember the others. I was pretty impressed, considering that he was a young single guy with no kids at that stage.

How young? When Bobby Jones's name came up, Fatty Taylor started laughing about how this kid had an enormous contract and the team had a very, very generous per diem when they went on the road, but Jones would eat at Red Barn, a burger joint of the time, and pocket the rest of the money.

"Well, he can do that," Taylor chuckled, "he's young yet." And Austin nodded his agreement, and it was the first intimation I had that we weren't kids anymore.

Austin played until he was 30 and Fatty Taylor left the court at 31. Bobby Jones, despite his penny-pinching penchant for Barnbusters, played to the ripe old age of 34.

Jason Simmons may well rehab that knee and come back next season, but, if it isn't the end of his career, it's a sad end to what was shaping up as a year that would be a nice payoff for ten long years of hard work. (And I note that he is actually three months younger than my younger son, who probably doesn't think of himself as an old man yet.)

Stupid Web Site
of the Week

Study: Editors sometimes don't quite get it

I was going through some things and came across this clipping, which I wanted to scan before it got any more yellowed and wrinkled. It's a favorite, and it still makes me laugh, even now that I am in a position to come up with equally perceptive headlines of my own. (If you click on it, you can make out the story, but the basic point is that the average college athlete drinks more than the average non-athlete student.)

Another day at the office

I've been working insane hours since my job changed temporarily. This week, we put out the usual 12-page Livermore Falls Advertiser and the 16-page Franklin Journal for Friday. It was also an every-other-week when we put out the 50+ page Rangeley Highlander, and then on Friday we put together the 8-page Tuesday Franklin Journal. And we had a special publication, "Our Towns," another 50-plus paper we do once a year.

This is a slightly nuts pace, but somehow we all got through it without any blow-ups or freak-outs.

However, the 8-page Tuesday paper and the Our Towns special publication will actually be wrapped up Monday morning, so I drove up through the Carrabassett Valley this morning (Saturday) to pick up a few extra things for them.

The above is just a grab shot for the Our Towns tabloid. This isn't a magic spot up in the wilderness anywhere ... I just pulled over and walked down to the riverside and took a few shots. Admittedly, there was a cutout by the road, so I'm not the first person to think it was a nice spot on the river, but there were any number of other places I could have stopped.

This is near the Sugarloaf ski resort, but the whole area is like this. It really is a privilege to be able to pop out on a Saturday and find yourself here in less than an hour.

This is where I was actually going ... Stratton Lumber in Stratton, Maine. The Northeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association was having a lumber-graders contest, with 19 graders from about half a dozen mills in Maine and Quebec. Each grader had five minutes to inspect and grade 50 pieces of lumber and classify them as #1, #2, #3 or Economy. The top grader got a $200 prize and the top mill, based on the scores of its top two graders, got a trophy and bragging rights.

It was very loosey-goosey away from the actual grading. While they waited around the corner for their turn at the lumber, graders and their friends answered trivia questions, based of course on lumber grading, with the first person to answer getting a lottery ticket. There was a lot of laughter and, naturally, a lot of good-natured complaining about the low payoffs on those tickets.

This fellow, Bernard Isabel, was also acting as "translator" for the francophone graders, a couple of whom really didn't speak much English, during this trivia session. However, there was so much laughter and kidding back and forth that his efforts were as humorous as they were helpful.

The winning grader got 37 out of 50, but, the $200 and bragging rights aside, this was serious fun, because after the competition, each grader went back with the judges and looked over the pieces he had missed. (And I'm assuming they chose tough pieces to grade, since the standard is for grading to be accurate within 5%) He was able to ask questions and get answers about why it fell into a grade other than where he had put it, and this is a fun way to sharpen skills. I'm told that the fellow who won had never won before and, in fact, had really improved his scores in the past couple of years through this process.

Besides the beautiful drive ... and I took a loop back home so I could pick up more pics for the Our Towns section, as well as for the scenery ... it was really fun to be among people who are good at what they do and have so much pride in their work. Times like this, I really miss being a business reporter.

Fortunately, once we pick up a publisher and some of the pressure comes off my back, I'll be able to do more of this sort of thing. Meanwhile, it does mean that I won't have had a day off this week (I'll put in five or six hours in the office tomorrow).

But if you're going to have to work on your day off, this wasn't such a bad way to do it.

My friend Sherwood has been reliving his 2006 trip to Ireland in his blog, and every morning it brings this song to mind. If you're going to get a song stuck in your head, this is a pretty good one. Planxty was a legendary Irish band of the 1970s and I consider it the apex of the ballad movement begun by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Nor am I alone in that assessment.

So hit play, and then open another window and read Sherwood's blog with this as background.

Lovely.

Quagmire

For once, I'm agreeing with the guy.

A chip off the very old block. This is my granddaughter, playing with a dog her parents are dogsitting for. They didn't add a soundtrack, but I'm assuming it is a melange of growling and giggling. I particularly like the part where Johanna turns away and Anna drops the toy over her shoulder in front of her as if to say, "Wait! I'm still playing with you!"

UPDATE: Gabe posted a version with the soundtrack -- it's quite understated but that makes it even better -- two non-verbal types engaging in an intense bit of play and negotiating the rules as they go along. I tried to swap it into the original posting, but ran into enough snags that I decided to just re-do the whole thing, losing a couple of comments. But I like the small giggles and protests that went along with the game. So there.

Say hello to my li'l friend!

The grass in this picture is slightly-shaggy lawn length, which gives you a feel for just how tiny this youngster is -- about squirrel size, though with a more delicately shaped head.

And the position of the tail gives you a feel for just how much my tiny friend cares about relative sizes.

And little people know
When little people fight
We may look easy pickings
But we've got some bite

It did occur to me that this incredibly cute little critter was at an age where, with some slow, cautious feeding and gentle coaxing, you could end up with a house pet that wouldn't spray. I know people who have done just that.

However, not being out of my mind, I made this as an observation and not something upon which to act.

And in any case, this encounter happened about a mile from the house, which is a good thing, since I suspect mon petit Gavroche, if encountered in our backyard, would have no scruples against showing Des and Ziwa what lies beneath that fluffy white plume.

ove and Honor

A 1902 guide to romance, from a book I hadn't thought of for a while, until I read this wonderful posting of advice from a 1928 book on letter-writing.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

No doubt there is such a thing as love at first sight, but love alone is a very uncertain foundation upon which to base marriage. There should be thorough acquaintance- ship and a certain knowledge of harmony of tastes and temper- aments before matrimony is ventured upon.

CONDUCT OF A GENTLEMAN TOWARD LADIES

A gentleman whose thoughts are not upon marriage should not pay too exclusive attentions to any one lady. He may call upon all and extend invitations to any or all to attend public places of amusement with him, or may act as their escort on occasions, and no one of the many has any right to feel herself injured. But as soon as he neglects others to devote himself to a single lady he gives that lady reason to suppose he is particularly attracted to her, and there is danger of her feelings becoming engaged.

CONDUCT OF A LADY TOWARD GENTLEMEN

Neither should a young lady allow marked attention from any one to whom she is not especially attracted, for several reasons; one, that she may not do an injury to the gentleman in seeming to give his suit encouragement, another that she may not harm herself in keeping aloof from her those whom she might like better, but who will not approach her under the mistaken idea that her feelings are already engaged.

TRIFLING WITH A MAN’S FEELINGS

Some young ladies pride themselves upon the conquests which they make, and would not scruple to sacrifice the happiness of an estimable person to their reprehensible vanity. Let this be far from you. If you see clearly that you have become an object of especial regard to a gentleman and do not wish to encourage his addresses, treat him honorably and humanely, as you hope to be used with generosity by the person who may engage your own heart. Do not let him linger in suspense; but take the earliest opportunity of carefully making known your feelings on the subject. ... Let it never be said of you that you permit the attentions of an honorable man when you have no heart to give him; or that you have trifled with the affections of one whom perhaps you esteem, although you resolve never to marry him. It may be that his preference gratifies and his companionship interests you; that you are flattered by the attentions of a man whom some of your companions admire; and that, in truth, you hardly know your own mind on the subject. This will not excuse you. Every young woman ought to know the state of her own heart; and yet the happiness and future prospects of many an excellent man have been sacrificed by such unprincipled conduct.

A POOR TRIUMPH

It is a poor triumph for a young lady to say, or to feel, that she has refused five, ten or twenty offers of marriage; it is about the same as acknowledging herself a trifler and a coquette, who, from motives of personal vanity, tempts and induces hopes and expectations which she has predetermined shall be disappointed. Such a course is, to a certain degree, both unprincipled and
immodest.

A STILL GREATER CRIME

It is a still greater crime when a man conveys the impression that he is in love, by actions, gallantries, looks, attentions, all -- except that he never commits himself -- and finally withdraws his devotions, exulting in the thought that he has said or written nothing which can legally bind him.

THE REJECTED LOVER

Remember that if a gentleman makes a lady an offer, she has no right to speak of it. If she possesses either generosity or gratitude for offered affection, she will not betray a secret that does not belong to her. It is sufficiently painful to be refused, without incurring the additional mortification of being pointed out as a rejected lover.

UNMANLY CONDUCT

Rejected suitors sometimes act as if they had received injuries they were bound to avenge, and so take every opportunity of annoying or slighting the helpless victims of their former attentions. Such conduct is cowardly and unmanly, to say nothing of its utter violation of good breeding.

DEMONSTRATIONS OF AFFECTION

It may be well to hint that a lady should not be too demonstrative of her affection during the days of her engagement. There is always the chance of a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip; and overt demonstrations of love are not pleasant to remember by a young lady if the man to whom they are given by any chance fails to become her husband. An honorable man will never tempt his future bride to any such demonstration. He will always maintain a respectful and decorous demeanor toward her.

A DOMINEERING LOVER

No lover will assume a domineering attitude over his future wife. If he does so, she will do well to escape from his thrall before she becomes his wife in reality. A domineering lover will be certain to be still more domineering as a husband; and from all such the prayer of the wise woman is “Good Lord, deliver us!”

Hence the term "bird brain"

Okay, I did notice that the bird feeder was getting low enough that the birds had to reach their little heads inside if they insisted on using the top rail and top set of feeding ports. But I had some things to do and I figured, once they couldn't reach the seed from the top, they'd just go to the bottom rail and feed from there.

I figured wrong and came home from the paper (my usual Sunday two-hour last-minute-clean-up stint) to find this little fellow inside the feeder. Apparently it's a lot easier to find your way in than to find your way out. Especially if you're foolish enough to climb inside in the first place.

Please don't tell Fish & Wildlife. I don't want to have to post little labels on the feeder saying "Caution: For External Use Only."

(Mike is on vacation. In his absence, Billy is blogging.)

When $50,000 means nothing to you
but class does

When the Houston Texans signed veteran running back Ahman Green during the off-season, there was only one, small problem.

The 10-year veteran had worn the number 30 throughout his career, and he wanted to keep it. It seems a silly thing, but when your face is covered with a helmet, your number is what fans see, and football players are strongly identified with their numbers.


But on the Houston Texans squad, #30 is defensive back Jason Simmons. Simmons is no Hall of Famer, but he's a solid dependable 10-year veteran who has been with the Texans since the franchise began in 2001.

This problem has come up before, and you can imagine there's some pressure from management to bend and make the new guy happy. Usually that incoming superhero shells out some money to the guy with the magic number. But, really, what does money mean to these guys, given the huge paychecks they command during their active years?

So Simmons set the price for #30 at $50,000. Only he didn't want the money.

This year, Ahman Green will be #30 for the Houston Texans, and Jason Simmons will be #22.

And, thanks to $25,000 from Green and $25,000 from Texans owner Bob McNair, Regina Foster and her seven-year-old autistic son, Reginald, have their own house. The price of that uniform number was, by Simmons' terms, a down-payment for a single parent.

Classy guys.