THE WEEKENDER :) NEW

NEW VIEWS

I want you to see and enjoy the bloom on the Lily of the Nile before

the marauding and savage deer get to it. 
(See the Post THEY ARE NOT SO DEAR June 9th)
We rarely get to enjoy bloom because it rapidly becomes a snack.

 The neighboring Orchid Cactus is also exploding with blooms. A couple of 
early shots here, again before the deer.

And speaking of new-a bunch of leaf lettuce picked from our back planter just a minute or two before the photo.  The beginning of a Saturday Salad.

NEW INFO ABOUT THAT SENSATIONAL PHOTO

Photo by Rich Lam Getty Images
This photo became a sensation around the world.  It was captured the night of the post hockey game riot in Vancouver.  At first glance it appeared to be a moment of passion amidst violence.  Here is a new view of this image.
LINK HERE FOR THE STORY BEHIND THE PICTURE. WHAT IT REALLY DEPICTS AND HOW IT CAME TO LIGHT.


This proves, once again, you need the full story.
Have a good weekend.
See you down the trail.

THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY

 THE DUTY

a self therapy

"The most beautiful thing we can experience

is the mysterious. It is the source of all

art and science."

Albert Einstein

       Suffering now, from an overload of information, politics, boorish behavior  and

the numbing of seemingly mindless consumption. Worrying too. Why did an old friend walk off a parking garage? How will dear friends with health issues fare?  Tired now of those who divide, who assert theirs is the only truth. Life's stumbles.

"Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The world turns and the world changes,

But one thing does not change.

In all my years, one thing does not change...

The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil."

T.S. Eliot

    

        Relief, like a tonic, comes with a retreat into reading of great minds, great thoughts

and great words.

"There is no duty we underrate so much as

the duty to be happy."

Robert Lewis Stevenson

"People of superior refinement and

of active disposition

identify happiness with honour..."

Aristotle 

The best we can do is to go with it.

"Make the most of each day."

Karl W. Cochrun
MAKING THE MOST OF
BY CELEBRATING A DEAR FRIEND

It was the same drill.  The Friday Lunch Flash Mob assembled at what used to be our almost private reserve.

Vacation season and visitors to the castle up the hill have lengthened the lines-but today was even more special

By the time it was it over, our number had extended to 22. We kept adding picnic tables to accommodate.  The special occasion? A birthday of a woman who we figured is probably the lynch pin of the group.  I'm avoiding names to avoid invading any one's sense of privacy. She was one of the first people Lana and I met when we moved to the Central Coast.  She introduced us to many, as she has done with most of the others.
So, without causing you embarrassment-Happy Birthday dear friend and thank you.
And so this day we find an emphasis on HAPPY!
Friends are a key in the beauty of the wonderful mystery.
And the joy of friendship is indeed wonderful therapy.

See you down the trail.

CYBER vs. REAL-BEWARE

WHEN DOES ONE CROSS A LINE

THE AGE OF INFO WARS

***A RECENT SLATE FRONT PAGE***

Second "Lesbian" Blogger Turns Out To Be a Man Editor of Lez Get Real outs himself as a retired military man from Ohio. READ FULL STORY

Cyber Vandals Breach Senate Website Same group that hacked PBS claiming Tupac is alive takes on the government. READ FULL STORY This front page from SLATE struck me as a reminder of the precarious nature of our communication and information systems. Even the CIA's web site has been hacked. Credibility and security are at risk.  They will continue to be so, it seems, for as long as we build our social structure around cyber communication. There are no safeguards.  As we do with blogs, I followed a link from the  SLATE piece to a well articulated set of thoughts from Brian Spears. THIS POST-A NOTE TO MY FELLOW WHITE MALES MAKES SOME OUTSTANDING POINTS. LINK HERE What Brian wrote prompted me to write a response.   "Fiction is just that.  Journalism is an approximation of truth  build on a foundation of facts. The blogsophere is  full of both and hybrids. Credibility remains the currency of journalism.  Notice or self expression may well be the fuel of bloggers.  These are mostly divergent cultures, but they aggregate n this cyber gumbo that we inhabit. Years ago I posed a question to a network executive for  whom I was developing a project:  at what point do the ethics of the cyber world begin to alter our sense of justice in the "real world?"  Random mayhem in gaming, serial  killing, explicit violence, explicit sexuality and false persona in the cyber world are permitted.  At what point does a social tolerance of such a recreational behavior begin to sew genuine social consequences?  It was an odd question to post to a network executive who went on to preside over what we call "reality" television. The post points the effect.  Anthony Wiener is living through another repercussion.  One may feel a cloak of protection or privacy while feeding the blogosphere with any manner of fantasy, lunacy or "creativity."  It is not illegal to do so, yet. Whether it is right or wrong is for someone else to reason.  It does however have consequence and indeed could be more serious or even lethal than a lone writer, wrapped in their own reality may have the intelligence or common sense to realize."  The old adage is true-Buyer beware, especially in this age of  information wars. We would add to that the modern admonition-   Read with care. "You should read only what is truly good or what is frankly bad." Gertrude Stein-quoted by Hemingway in A MOVEABLE FEAST There are efforts underway on the security front. LINK HERE TO READ OF A NOVEL APPROACH TO NET SECURITY BEING DEVELOPED BY A GROUP OF NEW YORK STUDENTS. DAY BOOK ARCHIVE SHOTS See you down the trail.

THE CUBA FILE-- THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

HEMINGWAY'S FIRST MATE

        The young man is the old man.  He is Gregorio Fuentes, Ernest Hemingway's first mate, bar tender, confidant and life long friend. Some think he was the model for the old man in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.

       "The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the

back of his neck," 

Hemingway described his central figure.

"The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had 

the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none 

of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless 

desert.

``Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same 

color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated."

Gregorio was 101 when we met.  It was 3 years before he died in his home in Cojimar, a fishing village east of Havana.

     He lived modestly, but comfortably.  He was hailed as a man who had mastered the sea and who "was a symbol of Cuban fishing and of human brotherhood, thanks to all of his 
years of friendship with Hemingway,'' Reuters quoted Jose Miguel Diaz Escrich, who runs 
Havana's Hemingway International Nautical Club. 

     A school of Hemingway scholars discount the idea that Fuentes was the model for the 

old fisherman in the 1952 Nobel Prize winning novel. He was only 55 the year the book was published. There are those who say, however, that Hemingway used Fuentes' hands as the inspiration for his character.

      Fuentes became Captain of the Pilar, in 1939 when Hemingway began his life in Cuba living in the Hotel Ambos Mundos. They fished the Gulf Stream together.  During World War II Hemingway outfitted the Pilar with special gear so he and Fuentes could hunt German U-boats in the Caribbean.

When not patrolling the Caribbean, Hemingway covered the war. He accompanied Martha Gellhorn, a photo journalist and his love at the time, to China.  He returned to the Pilar and Cuba but later went to Europe to work as a war correspondent.  

After the war the writer and his captain spent extensive time in the Caribbean waters where Hemingway was said to have a special sense or enhanced vision that enabled him to spot deep Marlin which he battled from this chair.

The pier in Cojimar where the Pilar was docked was all but abandoned. 

The La Terazza was a favorite Hemingway hang out.  It was still a vibrant tavern and favorite of the locals. Many of them had Hemingway stories.

Cojimar has memorialized the famous American, not far from where he and the Captain launched their many adventures.

Gregorio Fuentes had a unique knowledge and relationship with one of the 20th Century's most influential writers.  He outlived his old friend and fishing mate by many decades.
He was there, in the moments, when Ernest Hemingway drew from life, from practical experiences to create literary images that live on, as Gregorio did for 104 years.
An old man of the sea.
See you down the trail. 

MAGNIFICENT YOSEMITE

AS GOOD AS IT GETS

        My friend Maura is planning a California jaunt for her Irish cousins and I've been helping with logistics.  Yosemite is a center piece of their visit.

       In 1851 an ongoing battle between gold miners and the native inhabitants, American Indians, reached a point where the famous Mariposa Battalion was sent in.  Probably from the moment the Battalion saw the place, word about it's beauty began to spread.

          On June 30, 1864 President Abraham Lincoln set aside a grove of sequoias in the valley.  That marked the creation of the first state park in the US.  Naturalist John Muir, who explored this wilderness, campaigned for federal park status.  It took 26 years and in 1890 Yosemite became a national park.

       Two rivers, the Merced and the Tuolumne flow through the park.  There are 196 miles of road and 800 miles of trails. 

        The waterfalls are a signature, always spectacular, and even more so after a winter with lots of snow.

 Do you see the sprite or spirit dancing out of this falls in this frame?

      The land is described as "colossal."  Indeed it is.  It ranges from 2,000 feet to 13,000 and most of it is true wilderness.

I wish every American could see Yosemite.  It is more than sheer beauty,

it is an attitude and sense of being.  We have made repeated visits and will 

continue to do so.


THERE IS AN INCREDIBLE DRAMA PLAYING OUT AT YOSEMITE AS THEY TRY TO BLAST AWAY 17 FEET OF SNOW BLOCKING THE FAMED TIOGA PASS. LINK HERE FOR A GREAT PIECE BY MIKE ANTON IN THE LA TIMES.

See you down the trail.

FROM THE TOP & MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

LOOKING DOWN ON CAMBRIA

        This post offers views rarely seen.  Our vantage is from about 3,000 feet in the Santa Lucia range, north of Cambria, near Rocky Butte and Vulture Peak. The distant horizon line in the frame above is ridge of the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, over looking the Pacific, between Cambria's East and West Villages. 

The summit area is heavily wooded with Madrone, Live Oak and chaparral.

The atmosphere, distance, and limited optics make it difficult to see clearly, but the high point on the far left is ridge line where our home sits.

 The land in this area of the Santa Lucias is largely undeveloped.

Mixed with copses of trees are granite outcroppings

Stone formations resemble sculpture

Madrones are prevalent and shine in the afternoon light.

 The light plays beautifully in the thick woodland on the mountain.

Wild Gooseberries flourish

The owner of this remote mountain top cleared a landing strip, with a spectacular view.

From this altitude you can look east to Lake Nacimiento, South to Paso Robles,

South West to Morro Bay and the rock, West to San Simeon, north West to Piedras Blancas Light Station and due north up the Santa Lucia peaks as they climb the coast.

With the sun to my back, I can look out toward Paso Robles and capture an image of myself at work-though taking photographs in the mountains is hardly work.

I hope you enjoyed these rare views. My deepest thanks to our wonderful host.

REEL THOUGHTS

Four of us caught Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris and the four of us left delighted.
It is the best Allen in years.  The script is brilliant, masterfully written. However the homage to Paris, the cinematic celebration of that rich city is worth the ticket alone.  It is simply a beautiful and visually delicious film. But it is entertaining, thoroughly enjoyable as well.  Fine acting all around.  And Owen Wilson sort of channels Allen, but with his own  impish interpretation.  Funny, enchanting, beautiful and clever.  Allen goes back to some very early stand up material, and imbues it with the mature 
skills of great writer and director. 
It is also a clever way to teach history!


See you down the trail.