Short Cuts


I was going to post the classic "TellTale Heart" with James Mason narrating, but can you think of a better Halloween combination than Vincent Price and Tim Burton?

Swiss Bit


When I first moved here I was under the impression that most of Europe didn't celebrate Halloween, after all, there's Carnival in February for that sort of thing, but it seems there has been a culture creep in the last 15 years or so. I was surprised to learn that children go out begging for treats in the Lausanne area (not too sure if kids here in the village do) and that Halloween paraphernalia and themes are in the stores, although not as ubiquitously as they are in North America.

What really surprises me is that the Swiss didn't already have some ritual for this date.Seriously, these people will have a fête at the drop of a hat.For all I know, they have a 'drop-of-a-hat' fête sometime in January and I just haven't heard about it yet.

Halloween retailers get a shock , Oct 31 2008 , www.swissinfor.ch

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Happy Halloween!
I love this clip, lots of spooky, goofy fun ( I love the smoking skull) from SNL sometime way back when Paul Schaffer still had hair and Dave Sanborn was making the SNL Band worth listening to.As for Screamin' Jay, he was amaaaaazin!

Short Cuts
All The Great Operas In 10 Minutes


This is a marvelous little film I first saw on Bravo many years ago. And it took most of the morning searching Youtube to find it.

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"Son a Preacher Man" was written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins, and was originally offered to Aretha Franklin, who turned it down. Springfield's version was produced by Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Marden for her first album for Atlantic Records.

LOLCat of the Month

awwwwwwwwwwwww.

Short Cuts



Le Faux Pli

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This clip starts out dark but gets better around the 1 minute mark.Check out that beat up guitar!

6 Days in Paris

So we spent six wonderful days in Paris, mostly just walking around, stopping to have a café or sip on some wine and watch other people strolling around.We did manage to do a few cultural things, notably a visit to the Musèe d'Orsay which had a special exhibit on masques throughout the ages, as well as the stunning regular collection of impressionists.

I was enchanted with this Degas in particular.



It looked like hard and hot work.

I spent sometime in front of this one as well and reaffirmed my desire to go to Amsterdam to the Van Gogh Museum.



There was this lovely and famous Manet to ponder.



If this whet your appetite, the website for the Musèe d'Orsay is fantastic, with background and excellent pictures on almost all of the paintings in the collection.

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Back with some Bach. *groan*

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The Big G and I are off to Paris for a week tomorrow. We'll be meeting up with my brother and his wife (who I haven't seen for 6 years) and hopefully wander around some museums and cafes and not be too disturbed at how the Champs Elysee is not what it used to be. Here's Joni with a smokin band (including the late great Jaco Pastorius) playing one of my theme songs.

Swiss Bit



It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the canton of Vaud, and what do the locals do? Go to the cow fights, of course. Today we went to the Combat des Reines in Oulens (about 2 villages over) and it was really entertaining. None of the cows get hurt, this is the kind of activity that they do left on their own in the fields, ah, but in the ring...there's a huge bell at stake.The Swiss are just a little weird.

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Seeing Jonathan Demme's 'Stop Making Sense' in 1984 was close to an orgasmic event. Seeing David Byrne perform this live at the Edmonton Folk Festival in 2004 was beyond spectacular. Here's the 'big suit' letting us know that 'time isn't holding us, time isn't after us'.

Press Leak

'Joe the Plumber' Isn’t Licensed

I don't think this guy needs to worry about his taxes going up.
Check out the story here.

Swiss Bits



I found all these lovely vintage posters over at www.internationalposter.com

And don't ask me about the last two...

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It's raining here today, but nothin's worrying me. Could those Ed Sullivan dancers be any gayer?

Swiss Bit










I had my first 'chasse' last night, and as with all things Swiss, it was wonderful.Every fall from October to the end of November, the 'chasse' menu is everywhere, chevreuil, hare, deer, boar, all things hunted as well as an incredible selection of mushrooms, courge, and marrons.Soon it will be raclette season and I can permanently give up hope of losing the 5 kilos I've packed on since arriving here last spring.

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The great and still going strong, Pete Seeger.

Press Leak




I like Christopher Cooper, he writes with that dry wit rarely found in any mainstream paper today.I first discovered him over at Common Dreams.org (please check it out for some of the best of the press on a daily basis www.commondreams.org and I'm always thrilled when I find one of his far too rare posts there.



Published on Thursday, October 9, 2008 by The Wiscasset Newspaper
Blowin’ Like a Circle ‘Round My Skull

by Christopher Cooper

It is altogether a good thing that we have abandoned certain terms formerly used to describe persons who, through accident of birth or subsequent injury, suffer from mental delays or disabilities. Understanding, compassion and every assistance society can provide is due such individuals. Often they surprise us as they prove able to do more with less than we would have assumed possible in those times when they were observed, measured, classified and forgotten. And, having adopted a more decent, humane language for innocent victims of circumstance or God's perverse fancy, we are thus freed to apply the no longer used classification system to our public servants.

For instance, take President Bush. Please. There has been much discussion concerning his degree of impairment and the causes of it. Clearly, his years of drug abuse and intoxication have reduced him; his halting, slurred speech, blinking incomprehension and goofy smirk suggest the loss of much higher-order cognition. But, then, his family situation cannot be discounted. His father is none-too-bright, his brothers likewise. One brother, a crooked banker, is a criminal (we leave aside in today's brief investigation, the evidence condemning George W. as a war criminal). Genetically, he, as the saying goes around here, "ain't much." And how much of his disability may we attribute to being raised in a home with a weak, ineffectual father and Godzilla's big sister for a mother? Who can know? These things are complicated, to be sure.

Googling George Bush together with each of the three old terms reveals a puzzle. Google discovers the following number of references for our President: Idiot: 2,340,000; Imbecile: 122,000; Moron: 1,020,000. Curiously, people apparently feel he is either at the high or the low end of the less-than-average intelligence spectrum (IQ 50-69 or IQ below 20), with few placing him in the middling-imbecile range (IQ 20-49). The second-lowest number of Google hits lands him, in fact, in what I think is his most likely slot, Dull Normal (IQ-70-80) , where he receives 142,000 references.

Clinical descriptions aside, Google weights Mr. Bush's personality: Fool, 1,900,000; Clown, 819,000, Jerk, 860,000. Socially, culturally, politically, we find he is an Embarrassment 587,000 times. Interesting. And material for much discussion and perhaps many fascinating essays. But I do not come here today to discuss George Bush.

After all, he is only one man, however stupid, and however much a mistake it was to put him in charge of our country. More baffling, and more ludicrous, is the behavior of the millions of persons and tens of thousands of institutions who have chosen to put their excess cash into the stock market. You will not have missed the excitements of the past few weeks as investment banks have crumpled and folded like cheap lawn chairs under a fat man's fundament; nor the drama surrounding Congress's casting toward the titans of Wall Street nearly a trillion dollars of money we do not have and will be able to secure only by bleeding our children. Some members of the House of Representatives voted against this egregious welfare boondoggle apparently on principle a week ago, but within a few days many such objections evaporated as the bailout bill was "sweetened", as they say in the compliant press. The additions to the original bill might be more properly described as fat, greasy, gristly, lardy, rancid pork. Essential to our collective economic well-being, apparently, are:

Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children

Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility

Sec. 308. Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

Sec. 504. Income averaging for amounts received in connection with the Exxon Valdez litigation

Sec 502. Provisions related to film and television productions

Sec. 325. Extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool research fund; wool duty refunds

Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa

Sec. 201. Inclusion of cellulosic biofuel in bonus depreciation for biomass ethanol plant property

Sec. 211 Transportation fringe benefit to bicycle commuters

So you can see, as so many members of both houses and both parties and most newspapers and all television networks assured us, we "had to do something", we "had to act now." It was imperative that we pass this giant, poorly-understood, hastily-concocted bill to "calm jittery investors" and "restore confidence in the Market." So mid-day Friday last, the Market that we worship and fear and that makes us both wealthy and jittery, was up by about two hundred and fifty points. Upon hearing that Congress had done as its moneyed masters directed, the Market immediately lost those gains and dropped a hundred and fifty points further. Monday morning Europe and Asia panicked. Monday the Dow-Jones shed another three hundred, sixty-nine points. I Thank God Tom Allen and Olympia Snow and Susan Collins pledged their support for this fragile and beautiful creature in my name.

But why would I expect rationality from either stock speculators or Congresspersons? The former are flighty, unstable types, given to wild passions and profound fears, eager to buy into untested schemes and quick to lose faith in the system they profess to love and understand if it "fails to meet expectations." The latter live to line their own pockets, help their friends, secure re-election funds, position themselves for appointment to corporate boards upon retirement, and issue press releases calculated to mislead the victims of their malfeasance. It was in fact Democrats, the party of the people, rather than Republicans, the party of wealth and privilege, who most eagerly championed this "Rescue" effort.

No, my friends assure me, it is to the top we must look for leadership. A new President is in order. Sure, George Bush was an inspiration for many years, and we are still grateful to him for giving us two expensive and interminable wars, and for easing a bit of the onerous tax burden on billionaires, but we tire of him. We will vote in record numbers next month to elect either John McCain (more tax cuts for the rich), or more likely Barack Obama (more war in Afghanistan and, if they don't shape up PDQ, Pakistan). Surely that will change things.

Really? After the bailout bill failed (both candidates voting in favor of it) and before it passed (both again in the affirmative), each candidate proposed his own "sweetener" to make it more palatable. Apparently they came up with this brilliant idea independently of each other. This amendment, they said, was designed to do something "for families."

"Families", it seems, have been worried that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation only guarantees bank deposit accounts up to a hundred thousand dollars. Both candidates advocated raising the cap to a quarter million. Now, there are seven or eight banks in Damariscotta, Maine. Any of them would be pleased to have me deposit a hundred thousand dollars with them. Other members of my family could spread their hundreds of thousands across several accounts in as many institutions. I was unaware that so many of my neighbors had so many accounts in excess of a hundred grand that their money was not adequately protected.

But this is not the first time I have misread the public mood. I have foolishly spent my income on food and housing and transportation, rather than squirreling away so many hundreds of thousands of dollars that the banks cannot hold it all. My neighbors have apparently been more prudent, and they will be "reassured", they will have their "confidence restored" in knowing that they can now receive insurance protection for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per account, thanks to the concern and attention and wisdom of candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.

Idiots. Imbeciles Morons. You decide. Then, by all means, vote if it makes you happy, if it makes you proud, if it restores your confidence.

At the close of books Wednesday evening, correspondent Cooper had on deposit in his account at Damariscotta Bank & Trust Company a little over sixteen hundred dollars, although fifteen hundred of that is reserved toward his twenty-eight hundred dollar property tax bill, so he is not as well fixed as a glance at the raw numbers might suggest. But this sum is about as close as he has gotten in nearly sixty years of life to testing the hundred thousand dollar cap on FDIC protection, so he remains comfortable and not jittery. He in fact confesses some measure of glee at watching the venerated Market teach its accolytes some sharp lessons. Send him such investment advice as you like at coop@tidewater.net.

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It was either this or "It's My Party" and this seems to fit what's going on in my life these days :)

Switzerland has many things that are wonderful, Alps, chocolate, lakes, the Hadron Collider, but I think that Nespresso is quite possibly the most important contribution to date.Everything about Nespresso products reek of quality; the vast array of exquisite coffees, the tasty bikkies, the very fine chocolates.Plus, who did they choose as their spokesperson? The very yummy George Clooney.

This is out my back door...

This is so...true.

Brilliant! Last post was 7 years ago...this blogging thing really grabbed me I must say. But now I do actually have things to write about, the time to do it and perhaps the motivation to do so.I will do a little revamping and catchup in an effort to make this someplace that I want to come back to everyday, and who knows, perhaps some poor unsuspecting surfer will stumble upon this and wonder wtf? and return as well.