The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
I enjoy tales about characters. It’s because I grew up among story tellers and characters. My mother Sylvia Bright has quite a following on several Facebook groups where she tells the tales of the place I grew up Greeneville, Tennessee. Thus I enjoy books that center on every day interesting people met in travels or while doing business. This book is just one of those. Winton Porter owned a backpacking shop and hostel. It is the only one that actually straddles the Appalachian Trail. So if you desire to walk the trail from one end to the other you will walk through that breezeway.
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
Since I gave up comic books for other things, like space in my home, I get my fix in comic book movies. I didn’t see Avengers 2, aka Ultron, in theaters because of all the moaning about how badly it dissed Hawkeye. I did see it in February on the cruise. Deadpool I was anxious to see but came out in a busy time in my life so saw it via DVD. This summer with little to do when camping in an apartment and waiting on a house to move into we went to movies regularly – saw Civil War and Apocalypse in a theater. Now I know those are two studios but for a comic book lover like me it’s one publisher Marvel. Thus I’ll give my short thoughts on each in one post about Marvel’s Movies. Warning SPOILERS ahead if you don’t want them for a particular movie skip to the next. I feel comfortable doing spoilers because it has been sometime since the movies were released and they were successes. Thus I feel those who care passionately about the story lines have already been exposed to the plots. (more…)
The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
I like organization and being able to find everything. It was easy when we moved often. I have found living in one place more then three years means we tend to collect junk. We’ve been in Wisconsin fifteen years the longest I have ever lived in one place. Ohhh- wheee, have we collected! Our aspiration is to retire to a Winnebago, or move about to series of small places. That means we need to shed 80%+ of our stuff. That is why I picked up The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kona.
I have to admit I was on the waiting list for this book so long I gave up and got the audiobook. This is a biography of a child born in the Gilded Age to a family as wealthy as the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, or Astors. Her father W. A. Clark was a contemporary of them all. Huguette Clark was the daughter of W.A. and his second wife, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle. She was raised in the Clark mansion in New York City that took up a whole city block. However upon the death of her father she and her mother moved to apartments on 5th Avenue. Once her mother died, Huguette stayed there until she was taken to hospital on a stretcher in 1991 and there she should live for the next twenty years until her death. Along the way she was an interesting character given to childlike indulgences (dolls, dollhouses) and reclusiveness. Her life was filled with the best of the best – master art works on the walls, mansions not visited for decades stood at 48 hour readiness should she want to appear. She owned jewels that would stun Tiffanys, had not just one but two Stradivarius violins and more. Her life saw the Empire State Building go up where the Astor house once stood and the World Trade Center towers come down in 2001. The history seen and owned by her is astounding. Yet I don’t think she was ever happy nor do I think I would have particularly liked her as a person. BUT I do not think she deserved the treatment she got in her old age.
This aired some time ago but as we are wont to do we recorded it then and watched it recently. The miniseries is based on a 1950s Arthur C. Clark novel of the same name. I think I read it back in middle school because the kicker in it I remembered. There have been some changes to story the ambassador between Karellen, Overlord Supervisor of Earth wasn’t a farmer but a Senator in the book. I rather like the change to a farmer. The adaptation is very good and has the gut emotional impact of the novel. The question is what if an alien came and made, forced peace on earth – gave us a golden age of no sickness and war. Why can’t we see them at first? What would that do to us in a generation? Would we take it or be suspicious of it? What in the end would be the price? Why would they give us a Golden Age? These are the questions of the novel and the miniseries that do get answers. If you haven’t read or seen it and want to explore these questions with the novel or the very well done miniseries don’t read after the cut and go do so. For under the cut there be spoilers and a discussion of where I felt the miniseries dropped the ball a bit at the end. So if you continue on you are either like me okay with spoilers or you know the twist.
One cold weekend day Mike and I made it to a showing of Leo DiCaprio’s latest Oscar attempt The Revenant. The story is an embellished telling of the Hugh Glass story. They gave him a son and wife that in history didn’t exist. Still the core of the story is real – Hugh was attacked by a bear (no not raped nor was Leo) buried for dead and came after the men that left him. It happened in Spring/Summer not Winter. But oh well, Hollywood has to up the stakes and pull the heartstrings, I get getting inspired by a true story and building upon it. Now to the movie itself. Do I think Leo pinned his Oscar here? (more…)
I just watched this documentary about a tragic incident that had been on the edge of my awareness. I was traveling when the accident occurred saw it on a monitor with news while waiting at an airport gate. I like so many thought ‘oh so horrible’ and went on with my life. You know tragedy like that changes lives but we never really see how. Then I watched this. (more…)
I’ve admitted it here before I’m a crime documentary junkie. I also adore Hollywood heist movies. When I found this documentary on Netflix little did I know I found something that mixed the best of both.
Scientists can be dumb sometimes. We’ve all read headlines like scientists finally prove water is wet and think well DUH! That’s how I felt about animals having thoughts and feelings. Honestly unless you’ve NEVER in your life been around animals, watched animals, seen an animal documentary I don’t see how you could doubt such things exist. However that was the prevalent view of science until about the mid-1990s that animals were composed of instinctual and stimulus reactions incapable of emotion or thought but capable of imitation for reward (stimulus response). Like me Virginia Morrell was insulted by this too. She knew her dog played, planned playing, picking just the right toy for it. She’d been around animals in her assignments for National Geographic. So she set out to write a book about the people who were scientifically proving what those of us who have looked into an animal’s eyes or watched an ant hill already knew. Then she wrote a book about what these people saw and are proving. (more…)
Okay last Tuesday I let slip one of my dirty blogging secrets – I prewrite and schedule posts. Today I’ll explain and air out another little thing you might have picked up on if you’ve been paying attention to my posts. (more…)
Mary Louise Eklund 