Betty's Pub 20.1
Main Menu => Old inactive posts. => Topic started by: andyg0404 on November 22, 2014, 04:21:25 PM
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Well, it’s not Buffalo but it was still pretty cold here, in the 20’s and windy when I went out but I see now it’s about 40 degrees. But it’s dry, at least until tomorrow with the threat of a deluge on Monday. Another wet commute to start the week, something that doesn’t please me. But I must have mentioned previously that the whole commuting thing is starting to pall. I had an annoying situation with my bus which actually turned out to be to my advantage. I have the option of taking two different lines to go into and out of Manhattan. This is very handy as one of them runs far more frequently, albeit stopping more often. I take the longer one in the morning while taking the quicker one for the ride home. A few weeks ago I boarded the bus in the afternoon, sat down and then heard the driver tell someone that he didn’t stop at my stop. To myself I immediately said, Oh? Other passengers pricked up their ears as well. The driver went on to announce that because it wasn’t a “legitimate” bus stop and the gas station on the corner where it stopped had complained, the police were giving the drivers tickets and he was no longer going to stop there. This was annoying on a few levels. It’s directly across the street from my home and the new stop is two blocks away. I don’t mind walking but I’m not thrilled about an extra two block walk at the end of the day if it’s freezing cold, or raining or snowing. The gas station was renovated some months ago, torn down to the ground and rebuilt. During the course of construction they also repaired the sidewalk on the two sides bordering the street. I can’t be sure but I seem to remember that there actually was a bus stop sign and that they must have removed it when laying the concrete and never put it back up again. Additionally the all the buses have stopped there for the 8 years I’ve lived in this house so to arbitrarily stop now doesn’t seem fair. The driver, who is a nice guy, sympathized and told us we should complain to NJ Transit. Which I did and let me tell you that I got the same satisfaction from them that I get in writing this tale, none. All they told me was it wasn’t a “legitimate” bus stop. The silver lining is that since I negotiated with my employer to let me leave earlier, I have incrementally moved the leaving time back from the compromise we reached to my original request. Prior to this stopping issue I didn’t think to check the schedule but afterwards I did and saw that I could just catch an earlier bus on the other route, and even with the additional stops still get home anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes early. So for once I came out on top in the commuting area. But my ultimate aim is to end the commute. I’ve never encountered a delay in going from my home office to the comfy chair in my living room.
I had a splendid time with my friends last week and actually wound up doing something I seldom do which is a doubleheader. That is, a different friend emailed on Friday and asked if I would like to have her visit on Sunday afternoon. Sundays for me traditionally mean reading the Sunday newspapers and just hanging out. But I immediately wrote back and told her yes as it’s been some time since we got together and she just had her first hip replacement with the second one coming in February. I thought I would take her out for an early dinner but she wrote back to say she wanted to come around 1PM and leave around 3PM because she doesn’t want to drive in the dark. Something that I, and a number of my friends, can all now relate to. In addition to vision problems, the headlights on cars have become increasingly powerful and some people persist in riding with the brights on which is incredibly annoying. It’s bad enough dealing with traffic from the other direction but it’s just as bad when it’s behind you and reflecting off your inside and side mirrors. So she came and I made my famous frothy coffee and we ate the Java cake I had whipped up the morning before, before leaving for my first visit. I discovered on the ride home from the shore that once again my lack of directional acuity has been leading me astray. To arrive at my home I eventually travel on the NJ Turnpike. As you travel North it splits off to the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel. When I lived in my old town I went to the Tunnel because I lived very close to it. When I moved I continued to use that side as when you go through the toll, it leaves you out on Route 3 which is what I want now. Saturday night I was driving home and I got confused because I noticed that the Bridge side also said Route 3. I moved back and forth before finally deciding to gamble and take the Bridge side. Imagine my surprise when it let me out in the Meadowlands five minutes from my home instead of at the beginning of Route 3 by the tunnel. And it only took me 8 years to figure this out. Just hope I remember the next time.
Anyway, despite the cold and wind I went into the City and walked up to the Metropolitan Museum. I arrived and was dismayed to see long lines at the coat check, something I don’t normally encounter that early in the day. It looked like there were several group tours which added to the mix. And they only had two clerks despite having 8 or 9 hanging coat racks. I waited a while and then gave up and just wore my coat. I wasn’t warm but I wasn’t as comfortable as I would have been if I had been allowed to check it.
But despite my complaining I had a very nice time. The first exhibit I visited was Madame Cezanne. A series of portraits of his mistress, mother of his child and eventual wife, Hortense Fiquet. She was his favorite model and he painted 29 portraits of her including a series of four portraits in a red dress. The plaque in the museum said it was the first time all four of these portraits were reunited since they had left his studio. They’re all the same pose in the same posture but each one is different and very beautiful. Three are from other museums with the fourth belonging to the Met. When I viewed it I didn’t think I had seen it hanging in the galleries and when I went to the website it says that it’s not on view. That’s one of the wonderful things about the Met, their collection is so large you never know when they’re going to bring something out of storage for a show. And because it’s the Met, it’s usually top quality. Cezanne boasted that no one painted red like he did. In addition to the portraits there are sketches he did of Hortense and other figures and objects, in addition to some watercolors which were exhibited in a separate room. The sketches are really remarkable in that he was just observing and pictorially making notes in his book for future works. Like so many famous artists Cezanne was not a very nice person, he treated Hortense very badly, only marrying her to legitimize his son’s birth. His friends made fun of her and he allowed it and when he died he disinherited her from his will. Happily for Hortense their son was a much better person and he saw to her needs until she passed away. This is an article from the New York Times about the exhibit. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/arts/design/madame-czanne-at-the-metropolitan-museum.html?_r=0 This is a link to the museum website with some background. http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/press-room/exhibitions/2014/madame-cezanne The website doesn’t show all the images from the exhibit unfortunately and they didn’t issue a press release which I find surprising but here is a twitter feed with a number of them. https://twitter.com/hashtag/madamecezanne
On my way to the second exhibit I walked through the drawing corridor and was pleased to see some new drawings and watercolors from Eugene DeLacroix and Theodore Gericault. You can see a little bit of it here at a Met blog. http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/now-at-the-met/2014/delacroix-gift And at this link you can see Gericault’s The Flemish Farrier. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/358099
The second exhibit was http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/press-room/exhibitions/2014/bartholomeus-spranger Bartholomeus Spranger - Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague. Spranger was a late 16th early 17th century Flemish artist who worked in Prague. I knew absolutely nothing about him prior to hearing about the exhibit and reading this article in the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/arts/design/getting-to-know-bartholomeus-spranger-at-the-met.html The paintings vary between religious settings and nude mythological settings. As I walked through the exhibit I thought to myself I hadn’t really seen much art like this and I confess I didn’t know what to make of it. As the Times says he is not a major Renaissance painter and his works are odd to say the least but it really is a fascinating exhibit. As a side note, one of the paintings, Hercules and Omphale, which is illustrated in the Times article is described like this: “In an opulent bedroom, the lithe Omphale, whom Hercules has been condemned to serve by the Delphic oracle, stands naked with her back to the viewer holding his club over her shoulder like a baseball player awaiting the next pitch. Hercules sits to the left wearing a feminine pink frock; he’s handling spinning implements, performing an activity ordinarily reserved for women.” Rather apropos for Betties. This is a link to the Wikipedia page with my favorite picture in the exhibit, a self-portrait. There were two actually, both wonderful. He painted both of them for one of his benefactors, the second one after the benefactor gave away the first one. I guess you can tell by my choice of the portrait that I really prefer that kind of art to the fantastic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomeus_Spranger
Well, lots of babble this week.
This week I have replaced the at sign with %40 for all the pertinent links. Now let's see what %age of the clips we like.
Andy G.
Pretty in pink party
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulasatijn/15373788998
Shag Me
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57172609%40N04/15547055251
18199
https://www.flickr.com/photos/126261562%40N08/15353105547
I'm a publicist and Matt is a flamboyant journalist. He looks better in that dress than just about any other person
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lastletterread/15623122951
The wedding dress.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/karenmartin21/15444329310
261014b 027 (2)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brenda-silmaril/15034754663
Vampire Lesbians of Sodom dress rehearsal
https://www.flickr.com/photos/26186593%40N08/15651309475
Little princess
https://www.flickr.com/photos/53516713%40N06/15642449071
...a little bit?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/104312886%40N07/15443180759
How could this happen. How could they know?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/60741642%40N06/15433050808
9-2-14 (22)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43980518%40N08/15006385964
Transexual Crossdressing
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sandstormmelody/8153723082
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What right does any gas station or business have to demand where any commercial or private vehicle can drop off passengers at the curb? What law was invoked to get the cops there to wait to give them a ticket? This sounds like something that would happen in China, not in a free society.
What bug got up their butt anyway that they'd would even care where anyone drops off their passengers at the curb? What possible difference would it make to the gas station or business where the a bus drops off passengers?
He's lucky his business isn't in my town. I would have had more than half his customers boycotting his place, a few picketers there, with the local news taking pictures within a couple days. I'd start a letter writing & phone call campaign to all the local media, a few organizations, seniors groups, & to their competition. I'm sure their competition would help with anything that makes them look bad.
The point I would have stressed is not whether there is or ever was an official bus stop there, but why these pricks would even care where a bus drops off passengers. Do they actually think, if they stop people from being dropped of there that they will buy his gas instead of riding a bus, or if nobody sees a bus stop there, they'll buy more?
Hang this crazy person & his business.
Most gas stations are a franchise. They represent some gas company, chain, or supplier. I'd write them too. If it's privately owned, write their supplier. Google the station, owners, suppliers, etc. & look for dirt on them. Also the station manager may not be the station owner or property owner. I'd write the owner too. It's no fuss these days, it can be done online.
In the end of it all you might be able to have them begging to put a bus stop there.
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Hi Betty,
You clearly are even more annoyed than I was. I can only speculate that the gas station's complaint was that when the bus stopped to pick up or discharge passengers it blocked their driveway forcing people entering or leaving to wait until he pulled out again. I agree that this is a very slim reason for their attitude but it would be difficult to mount a campaign as you suggest. The main thing in the station's favor is that it is an off brand and considerably cheaper than other gas stations, even 20 cents a gallon less than the 7-11 across the street. And New Jersey is a state where most people drive rather than take the bus so sympathies will lie with cheap gas rather than mass transportation.
In any event I'm glad that I'm getting home earlier and don't have to walk the additional two blocks.
Thanks
Andy G.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my four day weekend so far despite the chilly weather. Got to relax and read and see some nice art. To the readers of mystery novels on the board I just finished “Snow White Must Die” by Nele Neuhaus. It’s a German mystery that takes place in a small town in Germany. A young man has been released from prison after 11 years having been convicted of the murders of two of his former girlfriends. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence since the bodies were never found. He goes home and is not welcomed with open arms. Then the bones of one of the girls is found. This was a real page turner. I had trouble at the start because there are so many characters I had to start making notes about who was who but it’s a brilliant book. You keep reaching climactic points in the book and wondering, what next? But it was brilliant from start to finish, can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s an ongoing series in which the two main characters are a male, female detective team. Unfortunately like so many of the foreign mysteries I read it’s the fourth book in the series but the first one in translation. It’s always better to read series like this in the actual order they were written because the characters change and grow and the cast increases and decreases. I read a lot so I won’t go on and on but I will bring up the author Jussi Adler-Olsen who is writing a wonderful series about Department Q in the Danish police system. I just read the fourth book and it was gripping, each book in the series has been great and the supporting characters have grown immensely from book to book. The first book in the series is “The Keeper of Lost Causes.”
The following article appears in today’s New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/business/with-art-investing-in-genius.html As someone who appreciates great art, I found it disturbing. To treat art as a commodity to be used as collateral or to prop up ones social standing seems to go against the grain. I realize that the robber barons at the turn of the 20th Century bought the old masters to show that they had arrived but the way it’s described below is just distasteful. Too reminiscent of my father’s partner who collected art based on what it sold for. I did enjoy the following comment in the article about value though, “A lot of contemporary art is aggressively ugly.” To which I can only say, well, yes!
I planned on visiting the Frick Museum today to see the Scottish National Art exhibit but in yesterday’s Times there was an article about a new acquisition by the museum, a self-portrait by the 17th Century Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. It had belonged to Henry Clay Frick II, the grandson of the founder and at his death went to his widow who recently bequeathed it to the museum. As it goes on display on Tuesday I felt that I could a wait another week so as to see the show and the new acquisition. This is the article with an illustration of the painting. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/arts/design/frick-collection-acquires-murillo-self-portrait.html
Instead of the Frick I walked up to the Adelson Gallery on Fifth Avenue and 56th street to see an Andrew Wyeth exhibit. I really enjoyed it enormously. One painting really spoke to me, it was a yard scene, the side of a farm house, sectioned walls with a drain pipe, a shuttered window on the ground floor with an unshuttered one on the second floor. There was a clothes line that ran the entire length of the painting from right to left and on hung a pair of what appear to be pajama bottoms blowing in the wind. A rag mop is leaning against it as well. And there is an old farm bell of the type that you might see on a ship mounted on two wooden posts. It’s title is Slight Breeze. Very evocative of Edward Hopper to me except, as I've said before, without the inherent menace. This is a link to the catalog on the website. If you scroll through it to pages 26 and 27 you will see the painting I've just described. http://www.adelsongalleries.com/publications/books/sevendecades/ecatalog/index.php
Yesterday I walked up to the Met. I was dismayed to see a large crowd waiting to get in once again but I managed to get to the coat check quickly and was able to check my coat. I don’t know if any of you saw the stories on the news and in the newspapers but the Met owns a life size statue of Adam by Tullio Lombardo. In 2002 the wooden pedestal base it stood on deteriorated and when the museum opened the next day they found the Adam on the floor, broken in a number of large pieces and hundreds of small ones. Using new technologies they put it all back together and when you stand in front of it you can’t see even a hairline crack. It’s remarkable and it’s a magnificently beautiful full size statue. This is a link to a Times article about it with a slide show showing what they had to do to repair it. It took 12 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/arts/design/recreating-adam-from-hundreds-of-fragments-after-the-fall.html#
Then I visited the Cubism exhibit. It’s a gift of the collector Leonard Lauder and consists of 84 works of art distributed among four artists, Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Leger. This is a link to images of the collection. http://www.metmuseum.org/research/leonard-lauder-research-center/cubist-collection/the-collection and this is an article about the promised gift before it was received. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/arts/design/leonard-lauder-is-giving-his-cubist-collection-to-the-met.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
It’s clearly a major collection of quality art and the Met is lucky to have it. But like abstract art Cubism is a very difficult genre for me. Perhaps it’s my monocular vision, my lack of depth perception or my inability to see three dimensionally but I seldom get beyond the cubes and squares to see the message in the art. I read the plaques and search for what is represented and only occasionally can I actually discern it. Maybe it’s my lack of imagination. Can’t say but it’s not art I want to stand in front of and admire, there’s also a repetitiveness of it that doesn’t lend itself to viewing a lot of it at one time, for me at any rate. I did find the colors bold and vivid and the collage part of it makes for an interesting display. I was looking at a work by Juan Gris and there was an elderly woman standing next to me also viewing it and she turned to me and made a comment basically laughing as if to say, this is how he saw his Mother? I couldn’t disagree. I always go through the whole exhibit and then walk around a second time to ensure that I saw everything. While I’m fairly confident I saw the whole exhibit, in this case it wasn’t so easy to walk around and say definitively that I had seen the works as I went by again. They all sort of blend in together. It was very nice of Leonard Lauder, someone who I don’t agree with politically, to bequest it to the Met. And he did it with no strings attached, no clauses saying the collection has to stay together in a room named after him which is very unusual.
The last exhibit I visited was Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry. I’m also not enamored of tapestries but this was quite an exhibit. They were rather overwhelming. To call them wall size is inadequate, they are room size running to 26 feet wide by 16 feet high. Actually I guess you would need a very large room if you wanted to display it. If you were to win one at auction you couldn’t just say, roll it up and I’ll put it on the roof of my car. They also depict Biblical scenes and wouldn’t be the most pleasant thing to look at every morning when you awoke. One shows the aftermath of beheadings, a rather timely topic today. But they are remarkable and only looked a little washed out in comparison to his oil paintings which were very vivid and bright. This is another link to a Times article about the exhibit that also has a slide show. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/arts/design/grand-design-showcases-pieter-coecke-tapestries-at-the-met.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar You look at the images online and you can’t even begin to imagine what they look like on the wall of the museum. Very interesting exhibit, I hadn’t really planned on seeing it and now I’m glad I did. As I viewed some of the works I thought that he wasn’t really a great artist and thought to myself, well I’m no expert, but I see now that the article agrees with that sentiment.
Well class, hope you enjoyed the lecture. Let’s see what’s at the Flickrs.
Andy G.
goan
https://www.flickr.com/photos/123125505@N06/15760438665
Janet Weiss Dress Tryout
https://www.flickr.com/photos/beckys_box/9285796125
20141018 11.34.36
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9296771%40N06/15427067918
alice for mcm
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40171643%40N08/15622657845
ss2
https://www.flickr.com/photos/104258138%40N03/15295509480/
Matthew-Dressed-as-a-girl
https://www.flickr.com/photos/radicalfeministrule/15861220115
♥; ❁一 Sissy %40kara_hara 一 ❁ [ Happy 7k♥ ] . // 6kkkkkk today?? xD . by girls.generation__09
https://www.flickr.com/photos/126358051%40N03/15514416619
10-31-14 (1)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43980518%40N08/15514020490
wifes sister
https://www.flickr.com/photos/62235099%40N06/15511385780
new108339-IMG_9234t
https://www.flickr.com/photos/49049803%40N00/15675052325
Alice
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IT is great what they can do when statues break
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Yesterday morning my weatherman told me that today was going to be a washout. Rain predicted from 6PM Friday night to 1AM Sunday morning. Do I even have to say it, I was not pleased. I planned on visiting the Frick last week and put it off because of the new Murillo going on display this past Tuesday. With the rain coming I thought I would have to put it off for another week but I was lucky in that I got to do my shopping and then head into the City without any serious rain and on the way home it only rained moderately. Not sure what became of the deluge but no complaints.
So, The Frick exhibit is “Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery”, ten paintings on loan from Scotland. It’s a touring exhibit and museums with more display area are getting more paintings but the ten in this exhibit are all first rate. The Frick has posted a lot of information on the website for this show at this link http://www.frick.org/exhibitions/scottish Off to the left are a number of links that explore the Gallery itself, an overview of the exhibit, a complete checklist with illustrations of all the paintings and a 5 minute video about them. All very worthwhile checking out. Of course if you’re in the Metropolitan area you should visit the museum without fail. I will definitely go back.
The consist of “The Old Woman Cooking Eggs” by a young Diego Velazquez which looks familiar to me and I wondered why until I realized it was illustrated in an article in the NY Times. Two wonderful landscapes, a John Constable, “The Vale Of Dedham,” which is a large painting of a forest scene and an early Thomas Gainsborough of “River Landscape with a View of a Distant Village.” These are paintings that you will notice details that you missed every time you stand in front of them. There is a portrait of Allan Ramsey’s wife, Margaret. “The Ladies Waldegrave” by Joshua Reynolds, 3 sisters sitting at a table, one winding a card of silk thread that is held by another with the third doing embroidery. Sir Henry Raeburn’s full length portrait of “Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell, 15th Chief of Glengarry” in all his Scottish glory, wearing his tartan and holding his rifle. John Singer Sargent’s portrait of “Lady Agnew of Lochnaw,” a very stately woman sitting in a chair in an informal pose looking directly out of the canvas at you. The first Sargent ever on view at the Frick. Botticelli’s “The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child,” like the Sargent, the first Botticelli ever on view at the Frick. “An El Greco, “An Allegory (Fábula),” showing a boy blowing a fire with a chimpanzee to his right and a fool to his left. And finally, “Fêtes Vénitiennes,” by Jean-Antoine Watteau showing elegant people in a parkland setting. The description of the painting reports, “Watteau gave the features of his close friend the Franco-Flemish painter Nicolas Vleughels to the strutting male dancer and his own to the lovelorn musette player — perhaps an allusion to a competition between the two men for the affection of the same woman, or a risqué joke.”
This is the NY Times article on the exhibit I mentioned earlier. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/arts/design/masterpieces-from-scotland-visit-the-frick.html?_r=0
Lots of things in the museum have been moved around and I noticed that the Ingres, the Manet and the Memling were all missing. I’m was confused about the Frick’s policy on loans but my big brother straightened me out. The Frick cannot lend anything bequeathed (or purchased) by Henry Clay Frick. They can lend whatever came into the museum after he died. Consequently they will be sending a large part of the collection to the Mauritshuis to pay back the loan of the Dutch treasures I got to see last year. And presumably they will fill in the holes with items currently not on display.
To make up for the missing paintings I mentioned they had three paintings that I’ve never seen before. 2 full size portraits of Sir Griffin and Lady Boynton by the English artist Francis Cotes and a painting over the fireplace where El Greco’s portrait of St. Jerome is usually displayed. I was standing in front of it and leaned forward to see if I could read the little metal nameplate but was unable to. There were two women standing next to me and one asked if I could make it out. I said no and joked that I would have to climb up to see it. She laughed and said it probably wouldn’t be allowed. I pointed out that the El Greco usually hung there and she said she hadn’t been to the museum in many years so I mentioned the Ingres being missing as well. Then I said the guard could probably identify the painting and she said they asked and he told them to ask up front. I was just about done so I left them and when I got to the greeting area there was a woman behind the desk and I asked about it. She told me it was a Tintoretto and she told me the name of it which I immediately forgot but I was able to look up, “Portrait of a Venetian Procurator.” I walked back in and found the two women and enlightened them. They were pleased and I said that it was one of the reasons I hoped the expansion of the museum was allowed, you take away an El Greco and just bring up a Tintoretto from the basement. It was very striking. Actually it’s not exactly a Tintoretto, it’s marked as Circle of, but very beautiful nevertheless.
And I very much enjoyed viewing the self portrait of Bartolomé Estebán Murillo. As a new acquisition I don’t think hanging it in the hall between two Vermeers is the best place to exhibit it. The lighting isn’t great and it would certainly have looked better in one of the bigger rooms. Of course the Vermeers really shone when they were moved to the large room and hung on either side of the other Vermeer, “Woman with a Maid,” which I’ve mentioned many times as being one of the most beautiful paintings in the world. You can see the Murillo here. http://collections.frick.org/media/view/Objects/1163/4374?t:state:flow=25ecc6c7-c0b2-4934-a33d-a698c56ed6bb
Please look at the illustrations at the links to fully understand how wonderful this show is and definitely visit if you can, you won’t regret it.
There was a very good article on memory in the Times the other day, discussing how we remember and misremember things. God knows I remember things all the time that I’m sure of and then I am stunned to discover that I hadn’t remembered correctly at all. Not to mention memories of my childhood where I can no longer be certain if I actually remember saying or doing what I remember or if I remember the relatives telling me about when I had done or said it. One of the letters to the editor in today’s paper speaks to my feelings about my memory, “It’s not the things that I forget that worry me; it’s the ones that I remember that didn’t actually happen.”
When you look at the first two flickrs, which are from the same folder, go to the folder as there are thousands of similar pictures. I'm fairly confident we explored this site but it was some time ago and I'm sure some of these are newer and equally sure that many of the board members haven't seen them or most likely forgotten them.
Andy G.
Sweetwater HS (OK) 1993
https://www.flickr.com/photos/79189925%40N06/9137747987/
Warren HS (Downey CA) 1985
https://www.flickr.com/photos/79189925%40N06/6942008110/in/set-72157629840068063
Sweet... until you note that in...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjvs/15747411360
Halloween favorites: Candy Striper 1
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ms_joann07/4030827876
Strollin'
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57172609%40N04/15305261443
What affect do gender norms have on kids as they grow up? 11/24/12 (For 11/25)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/95693638%40N03/15684862717
queen of hearts....
https://www.flickr.com/photos/76981898%40N00/15311884023
Prix de Beaute & Justin in #Hollywood 2014 GLIU
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gingerliu/15691736397
Tennis, anyone?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/60741642%40N06/15313324393
2012_light_0376
https://www.flickr.com/photos/61083860%40N00/15527590757
DSC_0607
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dressrei/15081121753
Closeup
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vivianchen05/15713357115
P1020158
https://www.flickr.com/photos/89611075%40N02/15516956807
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
It’s a cold, windy, blustery day but dry so I will avoid complaining. I went into NYC this morning and prior to visiting the Morgan Library I walked down to 21st Street and Sixth Avenue to buy almonds at Trader Joes. Going to Trader Joes early is always a good idea as I have been on lines to check out that went completely around the store. As all I ever buy is several bags of roasted, raw almonds, waiting on line for 20 minutes to check out is something to be avoided. Which I did today by getting there around 9:30 AM ET. I’m guessing I hadn’t been there since the summer so I was surprised that the bag of almonds that I had purchased previously for $4.99 was now $6.49, a fairly steep increase. Apparently this is still due to a drought in California at the end of last year. In an article I just read it stated that California is responsible for 82% of the world’s supply. But even at $6.49 a pound they appear to be a bargain, I see them online for much more and would also additionally have shipping charges added on. I use them in baking my cinnamon almond sugar cookies and love eating them, they’re a very healthy food but they’re also fattening, an ounce of almonds is 170 calories and it’s really not hard to eat way over an ounce. Actually it’s much harder to stop. Kind of like eating ice cream. I told a friend once that I would buy a pint of ice cream and eat half of it then put it back in the freezer for another time. My friend laughed and said that if he bought a pint of ice cream he ate it until his spoon hit cardboard at the bottom. Well, he probably didn’t weigh 200 pounds on his 5 foot 4 inch body when he was 19 like I did.
Anyway, from Trader Joes I walked up to 36th Street and Madison Avenue to visit the Morgan Library. The exhibit I was there for was “The Untamed Landscape: Théodore Rousseau and the Path to Barbizon.” This is a link to the Morgan website description of the exhibit. http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/The-Untamed-Landscape Rousseau was a nineteenth century French artist who worked mainly in landscapes. It was a nice size show, more than 70 drawings and oils with a few watercolors. The oils were all small and done as sketches for larger works. Some were very raw and abstract while others were closer to finished works. It was a wonderful show and the drawings were really the attraction, at least for me. He drew forest scenes and some of them were very spare, that is, like Japanese art which is never afraid of white space. Too many Western artists feel a need to fill the canvas when quite often less really is more. Additionally he drew boats at sea and docked, houses and chateaus and one lovely little sketch of four people kneeling in prayer from the back. I looked at one of the drawings and found it evocative of Van Gogh and I was pleased to read further on that Van Gogh cited him as an influence. At the end of the exhibit there was a real treat, four drawings, two each one atop the other. The first was by Rousseau and titled “The Oaks” and below it was a similar drawing by Jacob Van Ruisdael, “The Three Oaks.” Next to these two, again there was a Rousseau, “A Screen of Trees Sheltering a Cottage” and below it a Rembrandt, “The Three Trees.” In the article from the Times below it says that Rousseau owned these two drawings. You know my love of the Dutch so this was the icing on the cake for me. The majority of the drawings were from a private collection so I can’t give you a link to these two drawings but here is a link to the Rembrandt which is at the Metropolitan Museum. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/354633 And this is a link to the Van Ruisdael which is at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. https://artsy.net/artwork/jacob-van-ruisdael-the-three-oaks This is a link to a press release from the Morgan about the exhibit which has a number of illustrations. http://www.themorgan.org/sites/default/files/pdf/press/RousseauPressRelease.pdf and this is a link to an article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/arts/design/thodore-rousseau-retrospective-at-the-morgan.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A9%22%7D&_r=0 It was a splendid exhibition, very enjoyable.
And so, on to the Flickrs.
Andy G.
Boys Will Be Girls
https://www.flickr.com/photos/126556798%40N02/15955377725
Dragon*Con 2013 costumes
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rgaines/9702641811
cf86l
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124061677%40N05/15485484077
FYA Sat 1 Nov 2014 000005
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hewlbane/15654753296
Halloween 2014
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48457908%40N00/15120972843
Nat
https://www.flickr.com/photos/128395119%40N04/15738643175
P1020129
https://www.flickr.com/photos/89611075%40N02/15556002417
March 3 2008
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96621487%40N04/15580776040
Red Carpet Blondie (17)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/126461197%40N06/15739785811
Snow White?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ryc-behindthelens/15718004606
Fasching 2015 (79 von 152).jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/116482854%40N05/15589129810
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
It was another cold day today, very raw. When I went out early this morning it was light out but it was still dark if that doesn’t sound too crazy. It was the kind of grim, raw day where you expect it to snow although it wasn’t expected and I’m glad to say it didn’t. But the next three days have rain in the forecast with thunder as an added attraction on Wednesday, not so good for all those people who hope to get away on Christmas Eve. I will start my final week of vacation on Wednesday, also taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s, returning to work on the Friday after New Year’s. 2015, a little hard to comprehend for someone born in 1951. Returning on the Friday won’t be so bad, it will be quiet and a good day to catch up and then we have the weekend to unwind a little. I am looking forward to my vacation with great anticipation, no great plans aside from a visit with my friends down at the shore but it will be nice to rest, relax, see some great art and read. Good practice for when I retire.
I took a chilly walk up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this morning for the current exhibition, Paper Chase: Two Decades of Collecting Drawings and Prints. It’s the Met’s tribute to their drawings curator, George Goldner, who is retiring in 2015. He’s done a remarkable job of acquiring quality prints and building their collection since he was hired in 1993. This is an all-star assemblage of artists including, DaVinci, Titian, Fragonard, Gainsborough, DeLacroix, Joseph Wright of Derby and Ingres and his teacher, Jacques Louis David, among others. I expected the show to be in the three rooms that generally house their drawing exhibits but its currently occupied by the Bartholomeus Spranger exhibit that I wrote about a few weeks ago. So instead it’s in the corridor where they always have drawings on display from the permanent collection. It’s a long corridor with drawings on either side and at each end and as you walk down and back you marvel at the wonderful things you’re seeing, one right after another. The Met is such a grand palace of art with so much in its collection that what is displayed is really just a tip of the iceberg. This is a link to all of the items in the exhibit, click on the thumbnail to enlarge it. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId=%7b37453033-0029-4CCE-90DE-B59CA44B101D%7d&rpp=90&pg=1
And so, on to the Flickrs.
Hope everyone on the board has a Happy Holiday.
Andy G.
The elusive Alex Plume has renewed his on again, off again relationship with the site. Although by the time you click on the link he may have barred it again.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127712480%40N08/
Boys in drag (390)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127712480%40N08/15414506644/
IMG_2063
https://www.flickr.com/photos/emilysakura/9581908524
dress party.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nayltail/2702077128
Jaz-Shannyn-Jake-2
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129264042%40N05/15788340432
VIS_2547 circle skirt and polka dots
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jennellap/4333065833
Feeling Girlie!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lisamcd/7468004206
Sissy Princess
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127450642%40N06/15617707878
027 - Copy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10792226%40N00/15162318283
day248-11 AnkRouge+AnkRouge
https://www.flickr.com/photos/yumiko_misaki/15623552269
_SHS6439
https://www.flickr.com/photos/shamshahrin/15603392978
Tiffany
https://www.flickr.com/photos/steffenkroehl/15150279784
ddt457l
https://www.flickr.com/photos/deetee21/15607107229
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
I am thoroughly enjoying my final week of vacation, the weather has been very cooperative. Xmas day was remarkably mild, albeit windy. I was able to wear my new flannel shirt/jacket without the heavy coat and the whole day was dry. Today also was mild and dry. Mild and dry would be a nice forecast for the whole winter but something tells me it’s not to be. I spent Xmas at the shore with my friends and expect to spend the rest of my time visiting museums.
As a matter of fact this morning I took the longest walk of my walks up Fifth Avenue to Museum Mile. I always start at the Port Authority Bus terminal on 40th Street and 8th Avenue and in sequence walk up to the following museums:
MOMA at 53rd Street
The Frick at 70th St.
The Met at 81st St.
The Neue at 86th St.
The Guggenheim at 89th St.
The National Academy of Design at 89th St.
The Jewish Museum at 92nd St.
The one I visited this morning, The Museum of the City of New York, is between 103rd and 104th Streets. 63 blocks up and four avenues over. I hope to continue taking walks like this for a very long time, I like to walk and I think that along with my daily exercise routine it’s helping to keep me healthy and fit.
I went to see an exhibit of Mac Conner, an illustrator of the 20th Century. Conner’s work appeared in magazines, industrial publications and when magazine work started to fade, he embarked on a career painting romance paperback book covers. He and Norman Rockwell, the dean of illustrators, were looked down on by the critics as “just” illustrators, not true artists. They had their own meeting place, The Society for Illustrators which has a restaurant as well as museum. I’ve been there for a few exhibits which were wonderful. I’m a collector of old newspapers and magazines so the illustrations in the show resonated with me and brought me back to my childhood in the 50s and 60s. There is also correspondence to him from the magazines giving him an assignment or requesting changes to a layout he did. Also a rejection letter from the Saturday Evening Post telling him that his work was good and to continue making submissions which he did. Finally his work graced the covers of the Saturday Evening Post early on and then he regularly did illustrations for the women’s magazines of the day, the seven sisters of publishing, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Redbook, Woman’s Day, all of which are still published, as well as Ladies Home Journal and McCall’s which ceased publishing in April 2014 and 2002 respectively. Other than Better Homes and Gardens, I remember my mother buying all of them when I was a child. I liked going through them for the cartoons. I particularly enjoyed the strip “It’s All in the Family” by Stanley and Janice Berenstain later know for the Berenstain Bears. One of my earliest memories of seeing crossdressing was from the All in the Family series in which the older boy has to play a girl in a school play. I’ve posted that here as a matter of fact.
Mac Conner is 101 years old and still going strong. This is a link to the museum website which has a video of him talking about his life, as well as a number of illustrations from the exhibit. http://www.mcny.org/exhibition/mac-conner-new-york-life And here are two articles about the exhibit, one from the Wall Street Journal and the other from the New York Times. http://www.wsj.com/articles/exhibition-review-mac-conner-a-new-york-life-1410389302 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/business/media/paying-homage-to-an-illustrator-from-the-industrys-golden-era.html?_r=0
Yesterday I visited the Neue Galerie for an exhibit of portraits by Egon Schiele. The Neue is a museum of early twentieth-century German and Austrian art focusing largely on the Austrians, Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Oscar Kokoschka and the Germans, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Lyonel Feininger, Otto Dix, and George Grosz. It was founded and is run by Ronald Lauder, heir to Estee Lauder and a noted art collector and philanthropist. Lauder purchased a full size portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Klimt for $135 million and it is the star of the museum being displayed in the main room on the first floor. (I mistakenly had Leonard Lauder as the founder of the Neue when it's his brother Ronald. )
Schiele had a very distinct style, unlike others that I can think of. His oil paintings can be very stark without a lot of warmth but the portrait drawings which are done in crayon, ink and charcoal are really very beautiful. Very simple and minimalist. There are portraits in charcoal that he did as a teenager in school that are really remarkable and show how talented he was. I was very surprised at how crowded the museum was, people were lined up outside waiting to get in. All I could think was, this isn’t Van Gogh, where did they all come from. I guess it has to do with the fact that while his work is on display at other museums it’s not in large supply and this was a chance to see many things that normally aren’t on view. This is a link to the Neue website with information on the artist followed by another link to images on the website. http://www.neuegalerie.org/content/egon-schiele-portraits-0 http://www.neuegalerie.org/exhibitions/items/2841 and this is an article from the New York Times on the exhibit. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/arts/egon-schiele-portraits-at-neue-galerie.html
And so, on to the Flickrs.
Andy G.
Girl thingys
https://www.flickr.com/photos/weissfoto/3044716960
cf101b
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124061677%40N05/15687036019
20141123-GR005289-Edit
https://www.flickr.com/photos/leahcim/15857920551
Sissy Dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/48457908%40N00/14302420153/
In a Polka-Dot whirl at Magic Theatre
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tanyadawnhughes/15695566380
Memories of Cross-dressing
https://www.flickr.com/photos/helene_tv/15872594445
Petit Lesseps
https://www.flickr.com/photos/15693951%40N00/15912782261
Boys in Tights
https://www.flickr.com/photos/50856638%40N02/15740774220/
DudleyHalloween14 316
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dannycasillas/15286101504
cartoons animes hq s comics desenhos crossdresser cdzinhas mangas
https://www.flickr.com/photos/117041661%40N02/15894293932
Sissy P-Hose 4
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129684894%40N04/15868549986
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
I regret to say my final week of vacation is over and there’s a New Year to deal with. It was a pleasant week for rest and relaxation and reading. I went back to the Metropolitan Museum twice, once for the Assyrian exhibit which was objects not wall art and while not particularly my thing was nevertheless an interesting tour. Also revisited Madame Cezanne as well as the drawing exhibit. And another visit to the Frick to see the Scottish National Gallery show which was just as special the second time, I may have to go one more time before it closes.
Since I get up every morning for work at 4AM or usually a little before, I find that even on vacation I can’t sleep late. I woke up just about every morning around 6AM and never stayed up past 9:30 PM. On New Year’s day I awoke at 6AM and did my exercises then decided to take a long walk. I did a long circle around my home, roughly equivalent to a walk from the Port Authority to the Met and you won’t be surprised when I tell you I didn’t see too many cars or pedestrians. And I have to laugh at my keen sense of direction once again. At the end of the route I came back to my block and crossed to the other side of the street to walk down to the highway overpass and then cross again to my home which is a few houses up. My street is parallel to a highway. I walked down the other side of the street a distance until I finally realized that I wasn’t walking on a City street, I had descended down onto the Highway. The only way for me to have accessed the overpass would have been to climb the barrier which I thought probably wasn’t a good idea despite my being in good shape. So I walked back to where I entered and then found the street I should have been on and finished my walk. I’m lucky there was no traffic.
I worked on Friday but it wasn’t too bad as it was very slow, the phone hardly rang and I was able to catch up on things before business returns to normal next week. Even got to close up shop a little early and get a jump on the weekend. Today all I did was go into the City and walk downtown to the Strand bookstore and browse before heading back home to read the newspapers and chat with a friend.
This wouldn’t seem like a weekly Flickr if I didn’t mention the weather so… right now it’s snowing lightly and cold but it won’t stick as tomorrow it’s supposed to be 60 degrees. Unfortunately early next week New Jersey will descend into the ice age with single digit temperatures expected, something I am not anxious to experience again. One morning last year it was 3 degrees out and I waited 40 minutes for my bus while I slowly turned into a human block of ice. It was so cold I couldn’t read the New Yorker, even with my gloves on. I had to put my gloved hands in my pockets to try and get some blood circulating. It’s the weather and the commute that are driving me to retirement. As I’ve often mentioned if I can work from home I will continue to work past 65 but if not I won’t regret giving it up.
Well, let’s see who on Flickr came to entertain us this week.
Andy G.
Girly Boy Dancers
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129353943%40N03/15968179889
The Ugly Duckling
https://www.flickr.com/photos/knessia/16082159381
Two sexy princesses
https://www.flickr.com/photos/125249336%40N05/15952028319
50131-stories-03c
https://www.flickr.com/photos/51515689%40N04/14967012443/
I like being pretty
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rkrause/15526122274
Cover Girls
https://www.flickr.com/photos/officialguse/15880312675
Tanya
https://www.flickr.com/photos/93737855%40N06/15417712790
fasching_ts-1
https://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_scholz/15945063918
DSC00722
https://www.flickr.com/photos/26082347%40N03/8643071615
Kenneth taylor shopping in Birmingham
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sissy_katie/15237792913
i am the girl next door
https://www.flickr.com/photos/64237525%40N05/15290081023
DSC_6438
https://www.flickr.com/photos/23509681%40N02/15354496993
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Or should I say welcome back to the Ice Age. As Betty has reported we are experiencing extreme weather here in the North East, single digit temperatures with even worse wind chill factor numbers. This morning I walked down to the Astor Place barber shop on Broadway and 8th Street and had Valentino cut my hair. In 10 degree weather, the walk not the barber shop. It was so cold on the walk down that my eyes were tearing and my nose was running. Really brutal. Hope there’s some respite tomorrow.
And I think this is going to be a short Flickr as I really have no news to speak of; first week back at work was OK aside from the frigid commute and I haven’t seen any art so I think I will just turn the floor over to our guests.
Stay warm.
Andy G.
David Walliams' The Boy in the Dress: BBC adaptation - 7 more in the folder
https://www.flickr.com/photos/katieboon/16202266551
1910s Ewald Kettner, Damen Imitator - another folder with additional interesting pictures
https://www.flickr.com/photos/23638019%40N05/16156082586
Un flic
https://www.flickr.com/photos/katieboon/14904669395/
4th-Grade-Dressed-as-Girls
https://www.flickr.com/photos/radicalfeministrule/15956488468
Taking my boyfriend out
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130476042%40N07/16184700876
makeover301
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129030489%40N05/15766509649
day249-12 Merry Christmas!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/yumiko_misaki/15938406416
026
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10792226%40N00/15967059021
Creamy Look
https://www.flickr.com/photos/amberjolake/16034396375
IMG_8499
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40481208%40N08/15958695655
IMG_0557
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36227588%40N02/15979898302
1444098
https://www.flickr.com/photos/104258138%40N03/15836965659
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Well, it was a fairly bitter cold day today, not nearly as bad as Betty describes Buffalo currently but it was ten degrees on my thermometer this morning and only in the teens when I was out and about. Tomorrow should be a little milder but rainy and Monday is supposed to be mild and cloudy. I try to cheer myself up by seeing the reminders in the newspaper that baseball Spring training is only a month or so away. As I’ve said before I’m not particularly anxious for baseball to start so much as I am anxious for Spring to start. I don’t watch sports anymore for the most part only catching the occasional few minutes of different sporting events on television. But I still enjoy following them in the newspapers although so much of what I read is unpleasant with the boorish players and owners acting out in an uncivil and anti-social manner. But I’m currently enjoying the revival of my hockey team, the New York Islanders, who after decades in the dumps are currently leading the division and playing very nicely, as are my second team, the New York Rangers. The Rangers went to the cup last year and lost a heartbreaking series to LA but I’d love to see the Islanders back in the playoffs. And the Mets who have had a difficult time of late also seem to have the beginnings of a competitive team. It’s always nice when your team isn’t finished for the season soon after it begins. See the current New York Knicks for that scenario. A friend sends me a package of Sports Illustrated every couple of months which I enjoy reading although I’m always reading out of season. The issues I’m reading now are just leading into the World Series. I find I enjoy reading about baseball and hockey, not so much about football and not at all about college football and basketball. It’s disgraceful how much money is spent on sports in College rather than on education. It’s a good reason why so many professional athletes retire having earned a fortune and then find themselves indigent a few years later. What I enjoy reading most are the nostalgia pieces about sports years ago and athletes who were popular when I was a child. The only things I didn’t save when I had to clean out my father’s apartment after his death were my baseball cards, my baseball digests and my Yankee yearbooks. Saved the first two Met’s yearbooks and I guess I didn’t save the Yankees because at the time they were in the doldrums. It was hard enough to save the comics, TV Guides and newspapers as I was living with roommates in a room that was about 8ft by 8ft. I just picked up a bound volume of Sports Illustrated on the auction site with the first 11 issues from 1954. I have the entire year of 1955 in two bound volumes. The recent edition was supposed to have the first 13 issues but it arrived with two missing. I negotiated with the seller and got a partial refund, then I went back to the auction site and purchased the missing two, as well as the 7 additional copies that closed out 1954. Now I’m looking for a multiple magazine binder that’s large enough to accommodate the 7 issues which are much larger than current magazines. I really enjoy going through the old magazines, things were very different. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.
I’m off for the three day weekend due to Martin Luther King day and I’m grateful to have it. Like much of my life the weekends seem to go by very quickly. And while I don’t do very much on Saturday and Sunday I still wonder where the day went it’s time to go to bed. I’ve been reliving my past somewhat of late in a rather odd way. When I moved to my new home I changed banks and consequently my check numbers restarted at 100. It occurred to me that they’re now mirroring my life, I’m current into 1980 and it’s been curious thinking about the years with each check starting with 1951 my date of birth. It’s somewhat akin to the feeling I get when I decide to look through my comic books or my TV Guides. I’ll pull out an issue and think to myself, April 1963, Andy was 12. Just like on TV I think of myself in the third person. When I was a child in the Bronx I was friendly with the owner of the candy store on my block. When the comics arrived she would let me go behind the counter and get the wire cutter and open up the bundle. Then I could pull out the comics I wanted from the middle so they didn’t have any dents in them from the wrapping wire. I always wanted to keep my comics in good condition.
Anyway, as I usually do, I took a long walk this morning, visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the El Greco exhibit. I’ve planned on seeing it since it opened but there was never any feeling of imminence as he’s not a particular favorite but I definitely wanted to see it and today was a good opportunity as there’s no other exhibit currently that I haven’t seen. As I’ve mentioned previously it’s in honor of the 400th anniversary of his death, and other museums are also doing tributes, the Frick for one. The Met’s exhibit displays their holdings as well as the holdings of the Hispanic Society of America. The Society is on Audubon Terrace between 155th and 156th Streets, way uptown in Manhattan. They have a very large collection which for the most part is unfortunately not on display. I don’t believe it gets a lot of visitors, it was my brother who told me about it and he said that it’s a neglected venue. I’ve been there once and enjoyed the visit. They have a magnificent Goya, The Duchess of Alba, a full size portrait which you can see at this link to the website. http://www.hispanicsociety.org/hispanic/paintings_goldenage.htm Since that’s just a thumbnail here’s a link to a full size view so you can appreciate its beauty along with a little background. http://eeweems.com/goya/duchess_black.html This is a brief piece in the NY Times describing the exhibit and the concurrent show at the Frick. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/arts/design/still-inspiring-400-years-later.html and this is a link to the Met with a chance to view all of the objects in the exhibit. Again, please click on the individual thumbnails to get an enlarged view as well as see details as to when it was acquired and how and also its provenance, where it came from. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId={66C91D1F-BC6F-4E25-996A-75C4866535E0}&pg=1&rpp=30
When I was finished with El Greco I wandered to the adjoining rooms and had a chance to catch up with Titian, Veronese, Lorenzo Lotto and Tintoretto, Venetian artists of the 16th Century. All remarkable artists and well represented in the Met. The Frick has several Titian’s and Veronese’s as well, all magnificent pieces. This is a description of the Met’s collection with a very nice slideshow letting you enjoy the same paintings I saw this morning. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/veve/hd_veve.htm
Let’s wander down to the Flickrs now.
Andy G.
Birgit018411
https://www.flickr.com/photos/birgittv/16013626795
Just dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/natalia_femina/15409901434
Art Gallery
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110386909%40N08/15827665718
Back in Black
https://www.flickr.com/photos/starrynowhere/15401187794
Pretty in Pink
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lindaw567/16000470916
SDC10092
https://www.flickr.com/photos/126461197%40N06/16013943005
French maid
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blackietv/15426239843
Atlanta 2014-34: Naughty or nice?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/76434492%40N02/15879616128
Halloween 2014
https://www.flickr.com/photos/melissamarquette/16059386996
WHITE DEVIL XXX
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetyasmine/15882544378
Dots in the Doorway
https://www.flickr.com/photos/briannagrant/15893749057
Choosing the right apron
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blackietv/16073597995
100_0117
https://www.flickr.com/photos/boobs22/15457222974
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It got up to 40F (4.5C) today, & probably the same tomorrow. It feels like a heat wave by comparison. With the computer running, & a little cooking, I had to open some windows because it got too hot in here. Just 2 nights ago it got down to 0F (-18C) with wind chills at -16F (-27C). What a roller coaster ride, a 40F difference in just 2 days. I was breathing fair enough with COPD the past few days when it was frigid. It figures, now that we're having a nice day, I'm getting desperately out of breath just trying to walk across the room. I had all these projects to do & had to cancel almost all of them because I couldn't breathe.
Before HSBC bank moved out of the area I was proud to have memorized my bank account number, even though it was 2 digits longer than a phone number (not including the routing number). Ironically, it took me longer to memorize my new phone number because I never have to call myself, & only gave it out to a few. But when HSBC transferred my account to a local bank, it was suddenly 4 more digits longer. No way to memorize that unless I spend more time than I'm willing to on it. When the new bank issued my checks, they started at number 10,000... huh???
Since about 1998 all my transactions are done online except my rent. I only need to write a check once a month for the rent, so my checkbook has been lasting a real long time.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Well it’s a winter wonderland again, we had our first significant snowfall of the season. Something that always makes me anxious. The only driving I do on a regular basis is to the Shop-Rite every Saturday morning and when it snows there’s always the question as to whether I’ll be able to go. Which in and of itself is not a major bother but I follow my routine and the snow tries to disrupt it. My boss tells me I’m compulsive and I don’t argue with him. I could walk to the store, I always do if I go on Sunday or in the afternoon but on my weekly trip I shop for the week, always buying a gallon or two of milk in addition to my vegetables, fish and other stuff and it would be a nuisance to carry all of that back home. In years to come I may buy a cart and bring the groceries home in that just as I did for my Mother when I was a child but that won’t work in the snow so it will still be an issue.
When we had the minor snowfall earlier in the season I was surprised when my man didn’t come by but it wasn’t a big deal so I didn’t ask. But when I heard about the prediction for last night I called him to make sure he was still my guy. He is but he gave me a scare. When I spoke to him he told me he had a hernia and couldn’t push the snow blower. He said he was told to have the operation but didn’t indicate he really planned to. I asked him if he would be able to have his men take care of me and he told me not to worry that he would do it. I argued with him about how serious a hernia can be but he was not to be swayed. So this morning when I got back from the store he was out there shoveling. I spoke to him and he said that he’s ok, just shouldn’t do any heavy lifting and he said he was going to have the operation. I couldn’t persuade him that shoveling snow involved lifting. I hope he does have the operation and soon, selfishly I want him healthy for future seasons but I also really like him a lot and don’t want him to hurt himself even more. As to the snow, I would guess we got about 4 or 5 inches, it’s always hard to say. It was very wet and slushy but I was able to get to the Shop-Rite and back which is really all I care about.
Once back from the store I headed into New York for the Sotheby’s auction. I wore what I jokingly refer to as my seven league boots. They’re rubbers that are very heavy. I bought them online not knowing how heavy they were, if I had seen them in a store I would never have purchased them. I definitely needed them in NJ but could have done without them in the City which didn’t really get very much snow. Most of it had been shoveled already. I took the very long walk from the Port Authority to Sotheby’s in a mist, it was wasn’t really raining but it was clearly doing something. I arrived at the auction house damp and a little tired from the walk due to the extra effort of having the heavy shoes.
The Sotheby’s show was really great. It’s on the tenth, seventh and third floors but the tenth is the one to see. I walked ahead of a couple who were always a painting or two behind me and I think they will be bidding rather just looking like me based on overhearing some of their conversation. They paused in front of a painting by Gerard Donck and the man asked the woman if she had one. I didn’t make notes this time so this is from memory but there were 8 small paintings right at the entrance which I liked, including a Van Dyck portrait and Strawberries by Adrien Coorte which I can’t seem to locate on the auction site. In total there were two small Van Dyck portraits. There was a John Constable oil sketch for his large painting of Salisbury Cathedral which my brother speculated would be in great demand by museums as the painting is a masterpiece, SALISBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE MEADOWS http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/master-paintings-part-i-n09302/lot.96.html It was nice but there were many other things I liked more. A Pieter Claesz still life, A ROEMER, AN OVERTURNED PEWTER JUG, OLIVES AND A HALF-PEELED LEMON ON PEWTER PLATES http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/master-paintings-part-i-n09302/lot.37.html and a Clara Peeters still life, SLICES OF BUTTER ON A WANLI 'KRAAK' PORCELAIN DISH, A STACK OF CHEESE ON A PEWTER PLATE, WITH A JUG, A FAÇON-DE-VENISE WINEGLASS, A BUN, CRAYFISH ON A PEWTER PLATE, A KNIFE AND SHRIMP ON A TABLE http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/master-paintings-part-i-n09302/lot.18.html both of which were really wonderful. I know nothing about her but she was certainly a fine artist. They had a wonderful Canaletto, LONDON, A VIEW OF THE OLD HORSE GUARDS AND BANQUETING HALL, WHITEHALL SEEN FROM ST. JAMES' PARK, http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/master-paintings-part-i-n09302/lot.98.html as well as a Panini ROME, THE PANTHEON, A VIEW OF THE INTERIOR TOWARDS THE PIAZZA DELLA ROTONDA. http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/master-paintings-part-i-n09302/lot.91.html An absolutely glowing Solomon Van Ruysdael painting of two small Dutch boats on the water with an incredible blue sky, WIJDSCHIP AND OTHER SMALL DUTCH VESSELS AT THE MOUTH OF AN ESTUARY http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/master-paintings-part-i-n09302/lot.60.html I mused that it’s a painting I would love to wake up and look at every morning as it would bring sunshine no matter how gloomy the actual weather was. And it’s estimated for only $3-4 million! There’s even an El Greco, SAINT JOSEPH . http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/master-paintings-part-i-n09302/lot.41.html The drawings are very good as well, two Ingres, Jacques Louis David, Greuze, a number of Tiepolo’s and Gericault’s and many others. And a number of pastel portraits by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau which are really beautiful. Here’s one of them, PORTRAITS OF AIMÉ BENJAMIN FLEURIAU AND HIS WIFE, MARIANNE SUZANNE LIÈGE FLEURIAU http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/old-master-drawings-n09301/lot.117.html I saw an exhibit of pastel portraits at the Met last year which had Perroneau and it was one of the best exhibits I’ve seen. In additional to the links above here are links to the auction pages for the different shows.
Old Master & 19th Century European Art http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2015/old-master-paintings-19th-century-n09303.html#&page=all&sort=lotNum-asc&viewMode=list
Master Paintings: Part I http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2015/master-paintings-part-i-n09302.html#&page=all&sort=lotNum-asc&viewMode=list
Master Paintings and Sculpture: Part II http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2015/master-paintings-part-ii-n09307.html#&page=all&sort=lotNum-asc&viewMode=list
Old Master Drawings http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2015/old-master-drawings-n09301.html#&page=all&sort=lotNum-asc&viewMode=list
All in all I was very glad I didn’t let the weather deter my visit.
And now, let’s go to the Flickrs.
Andy G.
Womanless Beauty Review 060
https://www.flickr.com/photos/31407788%40N02/15038644601
Twice Two (1933)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/56590546%40N03/16314977295
sissy boy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/117041661%40N02/16140505025
IMG_0690
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rafiats/14751051753/
sheldon in maid outfit
https://www.flickr.com/photos/69818816%40N00/16081230686
All in black
https://www.flickr.com/photos/georgieukcd/15955255717
The missing objects
https://www.flickr.com/photos/66926448%40N07/16009434442
Womanless beauty pageant
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7742807%40N08/16146566937
White Dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/85377749%40N08/15465330374
Legnano - Corso Italia
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alessiacross/15945120767
Paisley Dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110386909%40N08/16122638235
Cute black and white dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/53516713%40N06/16051732992
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
We appear to be broadcasting from the North Pole again, just like in Buffalo as Betty told us. Northern NJ and NY are having their own polar vortex. Bitter cold weather today; early on temperatures in the single digits with a really nasty wind making it seem that much colder. And while we escaped the storm of the Century earlier in the week, it still dropped 8 inches on us and generally made for unpleasantness. I wound up working from home last Tuesday but that was more due to the entire transit system being shut down. Not complaining mind you, working from home is my fondest wish after not working at all. I left the office early on Monday to avoid a commuter nightmare but it turned out I hadn’t left early enough. Took me over two hours to get home but I got a seat on the bus and I was warm and grateful to be home once I got there. If my driver had been a little more familiar with where he was going I probably could have cut the commute in half but like when you call tech help, it’s the luck of the draw. And the forecast for tomorrow night is another snow storm which while not of the magnitude they predicted for the earlier one will still drop a similar amount of snow on us, somewhere between 6 and 11 inches if the forecast holds. To make it worse, by Monday morning it will turn to freezing rain, another chance for me to fall on my behind. I can only wait and see if Monday will be another day to enjoy the virtual office.
Despite the cold this morning I walked down to Washington Square East to the NYU Grey Art Gallery to see an exhibit of art from the 1930's, “The Left Front: Radical Art in the "Red Decade," 1929-1940. I was going to enter in links for the three sections on the website, an overview, the press release and selected works but I see that the website link is the only link no matter what section you are on. When you get to the website click on the illustration over the copy for the exhibit which will bring you to the next page with additional links. You have to then click on each of the other links to leave the page. When you get to the press release there is an additional link to see an expanded press release. For selected works, there are six boxes initially with an arrow at the bottom to go to a second and third page for a total of 16 works. http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/
To quote from the press release, “The show features primarily prints, as well as drawings and watercolors, paintings, posters, photographs, books, film footage, and ephemera.” One photo was really chilling, it showed National Guard troops setting up a machine gun during a GM strike. You don't think about things like that taking place in the United States but unfortunately our history can be just as ugly as any foreign country and there have always been people in power fearful of organized labor and progressive thought. It’s a very timely show. I wasn’t familiar with a number of the artists but I knew Rockwell Kent, an artist whose left wing affiliations of the 30’s and 40’s brought him to the blacklist of the 50’s. He had a number of works in the show. In particular “Four Ways the World will End.” These four lithographs were done as illustrations for a Life Magazine article in the November 1, 1937 issue on the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. They depicted a dystopian view of a future catastrophic end of the world. This is a link to Google books which has the all of the Life Magazines printed available for browsing. http://tinyurl.com/n5q24l5 This is a great site, browsing the old magazines is always fun. I have several bound volumes of the old Life Magazine and if I consider getting another one I can go this site and see the contents to help me decide if I want it.
There were other works that spoke of the depression, unemployment, hungry people and oppression. References to the Spanish Civil War and Guernica by Picasso. An etching of a bread line by Reginald Marsh, an artist I’ve mentioned in earlier Flickrs. He’s someone who started out as a cartoonist, I have a bound volume of the NY Daily News from 1923 with his cartoons, who went on to become an artist of some renown, painting scenes of city life, sporting and entertainment events. A lithograph of men eating, “The Mission,” by Raphael Soyer, someone else I’ve mentioned over the years. And two abstract drawings by Stuart David, a leftist artist who also went on to great renown with numerous paintings in the museums I regularly visit. I thought it a very enjoyable exhibition.
It was so cold today that despite the fact I was wearing all my layers when the wind blew it went right through me. Had to keep holding onto my hood to keep it from being blown off my head. On the way home I stopped to pick up coffee beans on Ninth Avenue by the Port Authority and got a laugh. There was a young woman in the store and she was heading over to Macy's. The clerks were awed that she was going to walk in this weather. A walk from 41st Street and Ninth to 34th and Seventh. I didn't tell them I had walked from 40th and 8th to 100 Washington Square East, down by 4th Street. They would have probably thought I was crazy.
Well I hope everyone on the board is safe and warm and enjoying their Saturday. Let’s see what’s doing at Flickr this week.
Andy G.
Gender Bender Day
https://www.flickr.com/photos/104546207%40N08/10767323585
Behave-Young-Lady-or-Else
https://www.flickr.com/photos/radicalfeministrule/16142034181/
Trying To Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
https://www.flickr.com/photos/30517065%40N00/16127185772
The boy who preferred wearing dresses
https://www.flickr.com/photos/64419249%40N06/15735509543
I'll blackmail myself... I are ain't scared... ...I looked pretty as a girl anyways
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It's cold here too Andy, so I am going to hibernate. Goodnight.
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Well thanks once again for some insight into the galleries of New York and exhibits I would never get to see otherwise. I have never heard of Red Decade until now but it was very interesting. Your reviews are most welcome as I enjoy Art and Museums and have had the good fortune to visit some on my travels. The rest of my family do not seem to share the same interests though and I think it was due to my mother lavishing so much attention to my drawing and painting and she taught me well. She had been a painter and sign writer during the war in England until she became an actress after the war. We even have a copy of one of her old movies on DVD from back in the forties. She did always say that I ruined her chances of becoming famous as she was sent on maternity leave after getting pregnant with me and never went back.
Thanks for your weekly posts as I am sure I am not the only one who enjoys your work each week. Stay warm and I hope you don't get too much snow in the future. We have been very fortunate here in Southern Ontario with not too much to put up with so far and I have not had the snow blower out even once yet this winter. Well I have probably jinxed myself now saying that.
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Well I spoke too soon as we are now getting Blizzard conditions in Southern Ontario. Been snowing since noon but now it is blowing around and drifting pretty bad in some areas. Went out to do some shopping just after lunch and it was getting pretty bad on the roads but I needed supplies to make my cabbage soup and a batch of cabbage rolls for the freezer. Going to need to get out the snow blower on Monday I think.
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Snow got pretty deep just across the border from you too. Maybe around 8-10" of snow outside my window with 4-6 more expected through Monday. Not actually a storm, just a steady snow earlier. But with the current high winds, it puts the wind chills down to -3F (-19C). The only relief from arctic temperatures around here will be 29F Wed. afternoon. After that it's supposed to get extremely cold again. 29F feels quite nice after 10F or lower.
The sky looks a bright yellow like during a cloudy pre-dawn morning. I woke up thinking it was morning already. It turns out the snow is reflecting all the ugly bright yellow-orange sodium-vapor city lights up to the white clouds. So the sky it all lit up even though it's still the middle of the night.
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Right outside my windows it's 15-24" deep. Looking across the property to other yards, I see some have only 6-10". Some of the rooftops are almost bare, while others have about a foot of snow on them. So I guess the wind blew things around a lot & made it uneven.
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Yes Betty, we got up to 24 inches here also. My water heater started leaking Saturday night and the service guy said he would be here on Monday between 1 and 5 PM so of course out I go to shovel the walks and make a path for him to get into my basement. The drifting around the house was 3 to 4 feet deep in some places so the first thing I dug out was my snow blower that I have only used once in three years. I put in some gas, said a prayer and tried to start it. Nothing but a whine. Tried again with same result. Looked back at all the snow and tried again with a curse word or two and low and behold it started. After letting it idle a bit and regulating the choke, off we went in a cloud of white powder. After three hours I had cleaned five neighbours drives and walks and about a mile of city sidewalk on our block. Then all the drifting snow around my house and the two fire hydrants on our block in case of emergency. The longer I live in Canada the more I hate snow. When I was in my early teens I loved it as I was a skier and figure skater but as I got older I developed a dislike for it. Hope you keep warm Betty and don't have to clear any snow yourself.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Well, opening with the weather as I generally do, I can report that today is better than yesterday. Of course that’s faint praise as yesterday morning I waited for the bus in six degree weather. Had to break out the down vest to augment my layers of clothing. It was in the 20’s I guess when I went out this morning and it’s in the 30’s now. Some snow flurries but nothing of any note. Another storm is forecast for Sunday evening to Tuesday but it looks like it will not be enormous, a couple of inches along with the wonderful freezing rain. Apparently this could have been much more serious if conditions had been different. But who knows, by tomorrow night conditions might be different and we’ll get our blizzard. But I hope not. Last weekend we got about 7 inches here and Monday morning was ugly. I went out to catch the bus and stood for 45 minutes in freezing rain or sleet, can’t quite see the difference, before I gave up and walked back and worked from home. One bus came during that period and stopped to tell me that I couldn’t get on as there was no room. Which I appreciated as earlier in the season I was waiting for a bus and it just zoomed by me without stopping leaving me cursing. The next day the driver apologized saying that she was packed with no room. I understood but it’s always better to know why you’re left standing in the rain.
There’s nothing currently doing art wise so I walked up to the Metropolitan museum this morning for the exercise and to get out of the house. Wandered through Art of the Arab Lands, galleries I’ve never been in, taking in the objets d’art, ancient tchotchkes of various size and shape. Household goods, religious artifacts, coins, jewelry and other items excavated from the deserts of Arabia. Saw some nice folio paintings from the Shah Jahan but this sort of art isn’t anything I actively seek out much preferring paintings and drawings. Therefore, afterwards, I wandered through the European galleries and revisited Corot, Millett, DeLacroix and Ingres, all brilliant artists with lots of beautiful paintings to admire. It’s great being a member of the Met, I certainly get my money’s worth going as often as I do. No art to speak of next week, I’m going down to the Jersey shore for a visit with my friends. Don’t imagine there will be much beach traffic, I just hope there will be no precipitation of any type. The following week I expect to visit the Morgan Library which I will duly report on later in the day.
I contemplated visiting The Drawing Center way downtown in Manhattan for an exhibit by Tomi Ungerer, a cartoonist and book illustrator, but the gallery doesn’t open until Noon and I like to be heading home for my coffee by that time. I confess that on my walk uptown this morning I was already thinking of my return to have my coffee and toast. Not sure I will go in the future but I think I will definitely want to visit the gallery in April for the next exhibit, “Portraits from the École des Beaux-Arts Paris.” It will consist of 40 drawings described on the website as: “The selection of works is extensive, ranging from never-before-exhibited drawings by seventeenth-century luminaries Jean-Auguste-Dominique Inges, Jacques-Louis David, and Charles Garnier to the work of modern and contemporary masters Henri Matisse and Georg Baselitz to portraits by recent graduates of the Beaux-Arts de Paris.” I was a little confused at first as they talk about hanging four pictures every week from different centuries with different qualities so the viewer can compare them in close juxtaposition. I thought to myself, I have to go back ten times to see the full exhibit? But then I read a little further and the other 36 drawings will also be on display. So at some point I will have to break my routine and stay out a little later.
There have been art stories in the news of interest. The Times had an article on Marina Picasso, Pablo’s granddaughter. Like many great artists Picasso was not a nice man. In a word he was a bastard who made life difficult for his lovers, wives, children and grandchildren. He treated Marina’s father very badly and she says she has no fond memories of her grandfather. She was left a trove of his art in his will which came as a total surprise. She said she had no photographs of her grandfather taken with her and had none of his works until the inheritance and recalled that Pablo would fashion flowers out of paper for her but, she was never allowed to keep them. I thought this the saddest thing in the article. For a grandfather to give his granddaughter something to amuse her and then to take it back when she went home. That’s very cold. You can read the article here. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/arts/design/picassos-granddaughter-plans-to-sell-art-worrying-the-market.html
Then there was the Gauguin that the Qatari’s paid $300 million dollars for. I told my brother that this was really incomprehensible to me, that much money for a painting. But he pointed out that the market for anything is what people are willing to pay for it. The buyer has to hope that it isn’t a bubble that will burst leaving him with a nice painting that isn’t worth what he paid for it. But that doesn’t appear to be anything for rich people to worry about any time soon. And the Qatari’s certainly have more than enough money to fill their museum. The notion in art is that anything you purchase can only appreciate in value but I see that this doesn’t always hold true. Two weeks ago I wrote about the Sotheby’s auction and they announced the results the following week. It was very successful and I see that the Clara Peeters still life, which I wrote about as being very beautiful, sold for $605,000. When I was at the website I was very surprised when I checked the provenance to discover that it had last been sold at auction at Christie's in December 2001 for $715,258. A rare case of the value depreciating. Can’t say why either, it’s a magnificent painting. You can read about the Gauguin sale here. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/arts/design/gauguin-painting-is-said-to-fetch-nearly-300-million.html
On the other hand, another item in the auction was an oil sketch by John Constable, a study of Salisbury Cathedral that went for $5.2 million. My brother had said that he expected it to be a big draw as any number of museums would have loved to own it. The best part though is that it was auctioned off 18 months ago and the current owner bought it for about $5,000 because it was thought not to be original. After the current owner received it, he/she had it restored and it was determined to be authentic. So it went for a thousand times as much this time. You can read about that here.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2931834/Lost-Constable-sells-auction-3-5million-1-000-TIMES-went-just-18-months-ago-experts-thought-work-copycat.html
Well that’s enough art appreciation for today. Let’s see what’s at the Flickrs.
Andy G.
Today it's my birthday, I am 23 years old :p
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lauracdgirl/16246536175
candygirls 118-65
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127811589%40N02/16056659480
Posing sissy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65791846%40N07/16253039701
I was lucky enough to be invited to homes and photograph crossdressers with their families. This family revealed everything. There are other images in this series where we strategically hid a partners face. At that point I wasn't that aware of what a huge
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bambigallery/16238966711
Crossdresser Boy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/harald-haefker/15618300193
45 Summer
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129600691%40N03/16047156398
Its Nikki Nicole!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/51647347%40N05/16254447721
transvestite
https://www.flickr.com/photos/111227158%40N03/11356120684
Transvestites and children
https://www.flickr.com/photos/yger/2696210739
Taking brother to dentist
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130476042%40N07/16023066530
4693222760_5dd179714a_o Karen Marie is wearing his beautiful wedding gown for the last time. As Karen Marie is being sealed forever. As a beautiful bride & girl forever too.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129730530%40N06/16275673025
Trendy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57172609%40N04/15653749994
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Thanks again to you andy g for posting about your visits to the galleries. I appreciate your links and commentary as these days I don't get much opportunity to visit any exhibits. I have not travelled much in the last few years and that was usually when I could take in a gallery or museum or two. I am waiting to see the new British movie about the artist William Turner who is one of my favourites. I picked up two wonderful prints of his at an exhibit at the British Museum back in the 70's and they have been on my office wall ever since. I should check to see if they are worth more than I paid for them as I just discovered that four posters I bought of the Montreal Olympics are now worth more than $100.00 each and I have kept them in perfect condition. I have always tried to put good art on my walls when I could afford it and some of my purchases over the years are now worth quite a lot of money for my retirement fund. Anyway thanks again for your posts, they contribute greatly to this board.
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Hi Angela,
Thanks, I love to see great art and also to talk about it so I'm pleased that I'm not talking to myself every week. This probably won't be a problem for you but my brother told me that when he watched the trailer for the Turner film he realized that if he was going to view it he would need to have subtitles.
Andy G.
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Hey andyg I have seen the trailer and can see where you would need sub titles if you are not too familiar with British dialects. Like in China, each district has it's own twists. There are also slang names for things and I would always get asked by people at work who watched the British soap opera "Coronation Street" what certain things meant, like "apples & pears = stairs, make a brew=tea, etc. Many of these terms come from the streets of Victorian England and have just passed down and then there is the true Kings English where terms for things are ages old.
I had seen a BBC special some years ago about the Life of Turner played by an English actor whose name I have forgotten and was a real true to life account and very well portrayed. I wish I could find it on DVD as I have a collection of BBC specials like Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and Bleak House and other Victorian shows the British are famous for. It will be interesting to see how Timothy Spall portrays Turner after seeing the original show and knowing his style from the Harry Potter movies.
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Hi Angela,
I don't know if you ever read Mad Magazine. I have the first 190 issues before I stopped collecting it and I have always remembered a bit of doggerel they printed in one of their satirical pieces on foreign movies. It was a British crime drama and it had one of the characters saying, "It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide." with the translation being, "It's crazy to pay off a cop in phony money."
Amazing the things that stay in your head or clog up your memory depending on how you look at it.
Andy G.
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Yes andy g, I did read Mad magazine sometimes but never kept any of them, I don't know why as they were good. Probably my mother cleaning my room and throwing things out before I got home from school. She was our resident censor, a real old fashioned dyed in the wool Catholic. Lost many a Playboy from under my mattress as well as some cute panties and tights. Never could find a hiding place in my house that she could not sniff out. Even my car magazines didn't survive and yet when I cleaned out her house after she passed away it was full of things from the past 40 years or more. Her things that is.
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andy g, do you remember all the British Carry On movies, they were full of east end slang and inuendos. I rent them once in awhile for a good laugh. I also found the older British version of St. Trinians School DVD. There were several of them made in the 50's with Terry Thomas and Alister Sym the only real good Scrooge in my humble opinion. The remake had Russel Brand and Rupert Everett but was not as funny. My other favourites were the Benny Hill shows.
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Hi Angela,
Yes, I remember all that, a friend of mine who I've known for 40 years came over from England when he was 16 and every year on Xmas he would only watch the Alastair Sim version. And I loved Benny Hill, Monty Python, The Good Neighbors and oh so many of the other Britcoms, as well as the Carry On films. Don't watch television nowadays but when I retire I will start up again and I know there are a bunch of current UK series that I might enjoy. Always liked the UK mystery writers as well, Michael Gilbert was a particular favorite and it was that same British friend that turned me on to him.
Andy G.
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I love Britcoms, & a lot of the older stuff from the UK. Some of my friends & family don't get British humor. To me there's something mentally wrong with someone who won't even crack a smile during a very popular Britcom, but will roll around laughing to MTV's Beavis & Butthead.
By giving up cable & satellite, I'm no longer limited by what they & the airwaves will deliver. Once I got used getting my programming from the internet more, it's like having a million channel international TV. I got hooked on British comedy & mystery though, because I live so close to Canada, & they used to broadcast a lot of British stuff that I was able to pick up. In general they'll broadcast more stuff from Europe than USA stations do. We get BBC-A (BBC America) in the USA, but they just broadcast a few old things, some losers, & Star Trek all day. They skip all the good stuff in the UK.
Even when I tune in AM or FM radio, it's on a Canadian station most of the time because they offer more variety, & less commercialized programming. They also run less commercials, & the ones they do run aren't as annoying, stupid, & misleading.
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Hey andy g and Betty, I don't watch much TV either but do tune in when there is a British mystery and the British comedies. My latest favourite is Mrs. Browns Boys that we started to get over here but when I discovered them on the internet I could watch all the episodes and Christmas specials also. Another mystery we started to get was Death in Paradise filmed in the Carribean with Kris Marshall as D.I. Humphrey Goodman a bit of a bumbling detective who always gets his man in the end. It is serious but also funny as well. We get a copy of the Canadian/British TV and Entertainment guide that lists the upcoming shows and times and stations. It also has great articles on movies and the actors and what they will be doing in the future as well as new DVD releases of British shows and movies. WNED Toronto has Masterpiece Mystery Sundays and Thursdays, Death in Paradise Saturdays at 8:00 PM and Father Brown Thursdays at 8:00 PM another good murder mystery. They also list British DVD's available from www. heritage-associates.ca but I have not sent for any yet. I have all versions of Scrooge from the 40's on up with various actors playing Scrooge but Alastair Sim is my favourite. I also like the light hearted musical version with Albert Finney.
I'm with you Betty, I just don't get Beavis & Butthead and I have never been a fan of Star Trek.
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With COPD, I'm stuck at home a lot... or trapped at home. My air filters running constantly helps my breathing to the point it's bearable most days. Outside the apartment it gets much worse. So it would be like being in prison stuck at home all the time if not for the kitties, radio, TV, & the internet. The few times I see anybody else is when somebody drops off something to fix, or to pick it up.
Although I will sometimes leave the TV off for days in a row, I will turn it on for the news if I haven't had a chance to read it online yet, or run in the TV in the background when I'm doing other stuff. I'll take a day or a night once in a while to watch everything I wanted to catch up on or see all at once. After a long or hard day, it's nice to lay back with some nice music or cool movie at the end of the day.
I'm lucky that many of the local channels also run sub-channels that run old movies & TV shows. Our newest TV channel, 56, runs 4 sub-channels of just old stuff, & plans to be running 6 by spring. It's only a 1,000 watt channel, but I've read people in your area picking it up with a rooftop or attic antenna. Channel 67 runs 3 channels of old stuff. They're more powerful, but broadcast on the old VHF channel 7 frequency. So your average flat, mini, or so-called "digital" antennas won't pick it up well because they're designed for the UHF channels. You need an old style pair of rabbit ears extended 15-18 inches to pick it up well. Channel 2 WGRZ dropped their weather channel but is now running 2 sub-channels of old shows in it's place. PBS runs "Think bright" on their sub-channel but also runs their regular shows from earlier in the week or last week on the sub-channel.
I get about 30 channels including the sub-channels with an ordinary indoor antenna. But about half are religious, shopping, & a country music station, so the TV is programmed to skip those.
I get netflix online for $7.99/mo. They don't carry a lot of new stuff or a lot of mega blockbusters, but they do have almost an unlimited amount of TV shows & movies to choose from. There are other pay online service too, like Hulu & stuff. But I find those carry the same stuff you can get or stream from the networks, affiliates, or distributors for free anyway. So why pay a streaming service to get stuff that's free anyway?
I keep my laptop permanently plugged into my big TV with a VGA jack. Since I can't go anywhere anymore, it's a good use for it. I use it as my media player to play TV shows & movies. I usually download or stream to my primary computer. But if I'm watching mp4 or mkv video (which is all the good video quality downloads these days) I watch it on the TV with the laptop. The laptop is too old for an HDMI jack, but HD video looks great just through the VGA jack. And unlike most modern laptops & tablets, it also has a DVD/CD slot for playing regular DVDs too.
I got my newest big 32" LED TV almost for free. I was going to get it for free broken, but I got it running for almost a minute before it went back out, so the guy suddenly wanted something for it. I ended up having to trade it for a very old computer that I made into a linux based media center long ago (my laptop took it's place). The TV's power supply was shot. I got it running by connecting a very old computer power supply externally (it was too big to fit inside). Later I got the real power supply for it for almost $60. Looks & runs like brand new. My other 26" LED LCD TV I got for free with a fried power supply too a couple years ago. I got that supply for around $50 to get it running like new. I'm using it as my primary computer's monitor since I got the 32" TV running. I had a wonderful 23" LED monitor connected to it that I got new for only $89 about 4 years ago. For now it sits disconnected sitting behind the 26" TV. These are recent model units with quality panels. The image quality & contrast ratios are as good as some of the best modern ones.
Meanwhile I still have my very old 27" LCD TV that I rebuilt from the fire ( maybe around 13-14 years old). I noticed when displaying solid colors like on a computer display there were areas faintly darker than other areas, but not noticeable when playing movies or regular TV. A sure sign the LCD panel itself is wearing out, & will only get worse over more time. Even if I could afford a new panel, it's so old, it would be hard to find a compatible panel new or in better shape used. So it sits as a spare in the back. It also was never as sensitive as pulling in weaker HDTV channels with an antenna than the newer ones either.
My laptop & primary computer, also rebuilt after the fire, just turned 10 years old this month. No new parts. Still all original. Not running XP on them anymore. Tried running Win 8 & 8.1 but didn't like them. So my primary computer is running Windows 7 & Linux Zorin as it's second OS. My laptop is running Windows 7 & Linux Xubuntu. I use W7 almost all the time. But there are a few things to do in Linux that can't be done or done well in Windows. Also it's an emergency OS. If windows dies or fails, you can access all your drives, windows, & files to save repair, edit, download, or modify in Linux. Windows can't access the Linux partition or drive, but Linux can access windows & it's drives or files.
As a Tech nut, of course I'm a sci-fi nut too, & love Star Trek. Didn't care for their series Deep Space 9 (about the a space station). I also stopped watching Star Trek Next Generation (and all the movies related to that series) when it seemed like almost every other episode was Shakespeare or Sherlock Holmes based. It just got way too corny even for a Star Trek fan. One doesn't tune into Sci-fi or Star Trek to watch Shakespeare & Sherlock Holmes being poorly done on a space ship. Eventually I did collect some of the better episodes of that series though. Other than that, I got everything else Star Trek, & loved their new movies too.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Betty has been keeping us all up to date as to the weather in Buffalo and I can add that it’s pretty frigid in New Jersey as well. There was a story on the Bloomberg about our weather and it said the United States is in a deep freeze from North Dakota to the Northeast. New York City, which doesn’t usually get such extremely low temperatures, is forecast to be at three degrees on Sunday morning with wind chills making it feel like fifteen to twenty below zero. It’s so cold that frostbite can occur within thirty minutes. Yesterday morning I had a short wait for the bus and standing in six degree weather with a wind blowing I can easily see how that can happen. It’s been an odd winter for us here as things were calm for so long I started to hope we would get through without much snow, then we got the last couple of storms and to add insult to injury the bitter cold weather means the snow has just frozen solid instead of melting away. My backyard is still covered in snow, ice actually, preventing me from turning my car around to head out of the driveway rather than backing out. To show you what a bad thing this is, this morning I backed out and snapped my side view mirror on the passenger’s side. As I’ve said before, no depth perception, very frustrating. I’m heading down to the Jersey shore for a visit with my friends and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the forecast holds. We’re expected to get one to three inches of snow and it’s supposed to start this afternoon. I will be keeping my eye on the weather and probably will head home early if I see a storm starting. We are way luckier than Boston which has received almost eighty inches of snow in the last two weeks with another blizzard set to add another foot of snow today and tomorrow. Their problem is also that there’s no place to put it since the cold has prevented the eighty inches from doing any measurable melting. Everyone I know is certainly tired of this long cold winter. If it wasn’t for the weather and art these posts would probably be very short.
Anyway, I think I’ll end here for the day. Should have some art to report on next week, at least I hope so.
I also hope everyone is able to stay close to home and stay warm and dry.
And I’ll just add that when I mentioned Brit Coms I don’t know how I could have forgotten to mention what I think was the absolute funniest series that was ever on television, Fawlty Towers with John Cleese. I have seen these shows many, many times and still burst out laughing every time. He is a genius and the ensemble cast was wonderful. If you’re unfamiliar with them, check them out, you won’t be sorry.
Andy G.
VintageTransgenderPictures
https://www.flickr.com/groups/vintagetgpics2000/
Schoolgurl sissy slut
https://www.flickr.com/photos/missvhoe/16314457991
DSC_3755
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dressrei/15686839513
Trendy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57172609%40N04/15653749994
Hot Seat
https://www.flickr.com/photos/starrynowhere/15661815293
Blonde
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110386909%40N08/15680927703
Fushia Gown 4a
https://www.flickr.com/photos/xgirltv1000/16116263180
DSC_6444
https://www.flickr.com/photos/23509681%40N02/16083962439
Bronx Pride Drag Queen
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129018085%40N06/15682105503
DSC07869
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanatulle/5542858743
Suburban house wife installation
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129891738%40N05/16284360861
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LOL. In my town when they run out of places to put or push the snow, they load it up in trucks & haul it away. They dump it in parks, abandoned or vacant lots, in a river, or the lake.
Even though it's warmer outside than yesterday, I had to crank up the heat twice in the past few hours because it keeps getting colder. The wind must getting worse or blowing in the wrong direction. We just got 3 more inches of snow today. Because none of the previous snow has melted at all there are snow drifts in some yards, & spots 3 feet high. Of course there's snow banks much higher than that. Just a short distance outside the city a lot of areas got a lot more snow than we did.
Low tonight, -7F. Low tomorrow night -10F. It's like we're on Pluto here.
Last year when it got this cold we had pipes burst all over the building & I went without water for almost 2 days.
Stay warm!
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Hi Betty,
Just got home and we're lucky in the snow department. Managed to drive home with no snow although it misted the whole way which meant every time I put on the windshield wipers they just smeared. It's a good thing my windshield washer tank was full but it wasn't a fun ride home. Driving in the dark is hard enough so cutting down the little visibility I have makes for anxious times. When I arrived at my house I saw that it had snowed a little, the famous dusting they talk about, maybe an inch or a little less. The weather website shows snow or snow showers for the rest of the night until 6AM so I'm not sure what I'll wake up to but I don't have anywhere to go aside from the 7-11 for the papers and that's a walk of about of 100 yards. It says that it will be 18 degrees at 6AM but that looks like the high as by Midnight it will be 2 degrees and feel like 17 below. I'm glad I have Monday off, wouldn't want to wait for the bus in 2 degree weather with a wind.
Had a lovely visit with my friends but it's always nice to be home.
Stay warm Betty, hope the pipes and the heat hold up.
Andy G.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Can’t seem to stop talking about the weather; it’s just beyond my comprehension how it can stay so relentlessly cold. I posted on Monday that it was zero degrees on my thermometer and how glad I was that I didn’t have to wait for the bus. Well, it was zero degrees on Friday too and I did have to wait for the bus. Luckily not too long or I would have discovered just how soon frostbite sets in. Every morning I have to walk from the west side of New York to the east side and on the walk my nose was running and my eyes were watering. Glad the tears didn’t freeze. I’m in pretty good shape and take every long walks but walking in this kind of weather is not easy. Check out this link to New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/today-is-officially-the-coldest-day-of-winter.html A natural spring in New York's Letchworth State Park completely froze and there was a fire in Philadelphia where the water used to put the fire out immediately froze. It also says it was 43 degrees in Fort Lauderdale. And not to make a pun but the icing on the cake for today is that there is snow in the forecast later today and tonight. Actually I see it’s snowing now. Are we all tired of the cold!
This all puts me in mind of the old Twilight Zone episode whose name I just googled to be The Midnight Sun. It’s a tale of an earth that is roasting to death, something has changed our orbit and is sending us into the sun and as the days pass it gets hotter and hotter. Of course as this is the Twilight Zone the twist at the end turns out to be that it is all a dream of a fever ridden young woman, the earth is not heading into the sun. Instead it is has been knocked out of its orbit and is now heading further and further away from the sun so it is getting increasingly colder and colder. Brr!!! Neither extreme is very appealing.
The Twilight Zone was a favorite show of mine and I can still stop and watch for a few minutes when they run the marathon showings on holidays. They were brilliantly written, directed and acted, quite often with performers who were little known at the time but went on to be stars. I also remember that when I was ten years old there was another science fiction series called Way Out, hosted by the author Roald Dahl, which also was a favorite. One of them absolutely scared the bejeezus out of me. It was called False Face and was about an actor starring on stage as Quasimodo in a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The actor goes to a flophouse and finds an ugly bum who he brings back to his dressing room so as to copy his face and use makeup to appear with that look. Afterwards he sends the bum on his way. The show goes on and is a great success except when the actor returns to the dressing room the makeup won’t come off. He rushes out to find the bum again and when he does the bum has his handsome face. Before he can try to convince the bum to give it back to him he realizes the bum is dead and he is stuck. Nightmares for ten year old Andy G for sure.
Despite the cold I ventured up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the latest Japanese exhibit which just opened. “Discovering Japanese Art American Collectors and the Met.” Just like its predecessors it was very good. Filled with screens and scrolls and the wood block prints I’ve come to really enjoy, as well as kimonos and everyday objects of daily life like bowls, jars, vases and urns. Lots of beautiful things to see. There were wonderful wood block prints of Kabuki stars which were originally collected by the noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright. There were sample wood block prints from “Kyōsai’s Pictures of One Hundred Demons,” with wonderfully grotesque images. As an extra there was a viewer with images from the entire book. Five triptych wood block prints of scenes of Yokohama; a foreign residence, a foreign business, an English trading firm, a curio shop and “The Newly Opened Port of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture.” These are my personal favorites, bright, vivid scenes with multiple characters and objects. I should also mention Hokusai’s Under the wave off Kanagawa, which should hang next to Fredric Edwin Church’s Niagara Falls, both make you feel very wet. That goes for a hanging scroll as well, Landscape with Waterfall by Nakabayashi Chikutō and finally The Monkey Bridge in Kai Province (Kōyō Saruhashi no zu) by Hiroshige. This is also a hanging scroll in ink and color on paper with an absolutely exquisite full moon right under the bridge. This is the descriptive page from the Met’s website http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/discovering-japanese-art At the bottom of the page click on view all objects and when the next page comes up, change the list to 90 per page as there are many objects in the exhibit. Click on the ones I mentioned and see if you agree with my choices. Very glad I decided to go. The Times hasn’t reviewed it yet but I have no doubt they will give it a rave.
OK, let’s go the Flickrs.
Andy G.
Ingrid Islas
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ingrid_islas/16208688646
Princess in Pink
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130108008%40N02/15740951803
Helen and Janet
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7883261%40N02/16191907750
Sissy Audrey
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65791846%40N07/15735658543
New sissy dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrellina/16353696931
Makeover January 2015
https://www.flickr.com/photos/emilykneesocks/16340185722
Tan n Brown Dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbievnc/15739742863
BERLIN_004212
https://www.flickr.com/photos/97251337%40N05/16138798769
On the Floor
https://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_richards/16139755680
!!!20140805_003927
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130890005%40N08/16152255750
IMG_3125
https://www.flickr.com/photos/125425414%40N04/16410731341
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If you're talking about the spring & geyser in Letchworth State Park behind the Glen Iris Inn, that's been on just about all the news media the past few days, it's not a real geyser, or natural spring. There are no geysers in NY state.
It's a man-made fountain, & pond (or spring) fed by a pipe installed by the Glen Iris Inn as an attraction. From the website, http://www.gowaterfalling.com/waterfalls/letchworth.shtml "Behind the Glen Iris Inn is a manmade fountain. The fountain is gravity fed. The pressure of the water fed through the pipe creates the "geyser". Every winter the spray freezes freezes forming a fantastic ice column."
We have frozen fountains in the middle of the city too. But we don't try to fool the tourists into thinking they're natural springs, fountains, or geysers. We've installed ice skating rinks around them.
Still, the manmade fountain is an awesome site to behold this year because it has grown so big. Although some of Niagra Falls has frozen, it's still running at a reduced rate as deeper levels of the lake continue to freeze. Here's some pix of it, http://5dot4.com/psk/index.php?topic=31.0
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Hey andyg,
I am a big fan of Japanese art and have some bamboo scrolls in my bedroom with wonderful garden scenes as well as a print of a tang dynasty flying horse that I bought from the ROM in Toronto when they were showing a wonderful exhibit there forty years ago. My bedroom furniture is dark carved wood with bamboo style trim and the posts on the bed resemble bamboo also. Bought this set in 1974 at the Art Shoppe in Toronto and I am still in love with the style. I also have a Japanese style garden in one section of my yard and will add a small waterfall and fountain this summer I hope. Thanks for the link again, as always I love your adventures and reviews of the New York art scene even in adverse conditions. Keep well and warm.
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Nice to see a pic of Sissy Audrey in this week's "Flicker."
Audrey was a beautiful sissy cross dresser in the Cleveland area who had a wonder website with lots of cute pictures of her in various sissy dresses, petticoats and panties.
She used a dress maker named Helen who ran a square dance shop in a suburb of Chicago.
I did get to visit Helen's shop while on a business trip to Chicago.
Spend several hours in sissy panties, full petticoat and maryjane shoes trying on dresses at her shop. I picked out 3 and she altered them (to little girl length) while I waited. Truly a memorable experience.
I traded emails with Audrey for a few years but have lost track of her and don't see her site on the web any more.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Well I think we can all bid a not so fond farewell to February. If only that signified something other than continued cold weather. This morning I awoke to ten degree temperatures which is bitter cold but currently it’s 28 degrees which I guess is just cold. There is a bright but not so warming sun out so that’s something I guess. I see in our forecast there is the famous one to three inches of snow forecast for tomorrow but Monday promises to have a high of 39 degrees, relatively balmy. This should start the large mound of snow/ice in my backyard to start melting although probably not enough to allow me to start turning the car around again. If I’ve done this right there should be a rather startling picture from Boston below showing the result of their 100 inches of snow. If I was in this picture I believe the snow would be up to my neck being only five feet four inches. When that snow melts it’s really going to be scary as the question always is, where will it go. As far I’m concerned this would have been a real catastrophe if it had happened in New Jersey as while my basement is fairly tight, when 6 feet of snow melts there is always a danger of seepage. Very scary.
I had occasion to call Verizon last night and this afternoon concerning my television. A few days ago I turned on the television and didn’t understand why the news wasn’t on and then realized the box was on channel one not channel four. I went to change channels and the remote wouldn’t do it until I pressed the STB button. I found the news and didn’t think anything of it until the following morning when the same routine occurred. Clearly my friends at Verizon were playing games with me again. So I called them and had to interact with what may be the worst voice mail, automated system, ever invented. Even with pressing zero, getting through to a person rather than robot is not easy. To the point that when someone finally comes on the line and asks for your information the first thing you do is sigh. It’s only the fact that I’m in good condition that I don’t have a heart attack or a stroke when dealing with this company. I explained the situation and listened while they read their boilerplate about going to the web and fixing it yourself, etc, etc. Then they did what all computer companies have you do, they told me to reboot the box, pull out the power plug and take off the coaxial cable. Taking off the coaxial cable was so I was able to flick the wire within it and discharge static. Somehow I didn’t think that static was my problem. The box rebooted and I turned the tv on and off and it didn’t revert back to channel one so I assumed the problem was solved. Of course this morning when I went to turn it on the problem recurred. When I arrived home, before I contacted them again, my phone rang and the caller ID said private name, private number. As my employer’s phone says that I answered. What a surprise, it was Verizon asking me to take a survey about my experience the night before. They didn’t hear me but I said no and hung up. But I mention this only to point out the absurdity that Verizon, when calling it’s customers, doesn’t identify itself, that is, they have an unlisted number. If I were them I wouldn’t want people to know who I am either. So I called them back this afternoon, another delightful 35 minutes of my life I will never get back. I especially like the way the message says that from this point forward all you will hear is music and from that point forward they keep interrupting the music to make inane comments. Finally the agent came on the line, sigh, and I explained the situation. The answer is that like me my remote is old and out of date. So they’re going to send me a new remote which I’m sure will cause as many problems as it solves. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a call to Verizon. Sigh!
Anyway, this morning, despite the chilly weather, I went into the City to the Morgan Library to view their new exhibits. There were several, all of which I checked out, but I went especially for their 19th Century oil sketches, Exploring France: Oil Sketches from the Thaw Collection. This is the second installation, I visited the first late last year and enjoyed it. These are not artists of the first rank, the most recognizable name is Daubigny, but they are very pleasant to look at. Being sketches, they are small although Constable did full size oil sketches so that’s not a requirement and they are all landscapes. There are a dozen paintings in the exhibit and as I went through them the first time I wasn’t overly excited at what I saw. This may be due to the lighting and the glare off the glass of some of them and the fact that some were hung above my head making it difficult for me to truly appreciate them but I walked back and forth in front of them several times and then came back to look again before I left the museum and I must say that they grew on me. Really quite beautiful. This link is to the Morgan website description of the show with an illustration of a painting by Eugene Isabey http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exploring-france This link is to a brief notice in the NY Times with an illustration by Achille-Etna Michallo, someone I am unfamiliar with but this painting and a second one he did of the same subject from a different view were what I enjoyed most of the dozen. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/arts/design/exploring-france-oil-sketches-from-the-thaw-collection-at-the-morgan.html?_r=0 I wish the Morgan was more generous with posting its images.
The second very enjoyable exhibit was Piranesi and the Temples of Paestum: Drawings from Sir John Soane’s Museum. This was fifteen drawings Giovanni Battista Piranesi made of three ancient temples that had been hidden by forest for many years that were rediscovered when a road was being planned. They’re in remarkable condition, not ruins but still fairly intact. They were known as The Basilica, The Temple of Neptune and The Temple of Ceres although these were misnomers later corrected. At this link you can get some of the history and also see what they look like in real life. http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/paestum-temples This is a press release from the Morgan with illustrations of some of Piranesi’s drawings. http://www.themorgan.org/sites/default/files/pdf/press/PiranesiPressRelease.pdf Piranesi was an architect and approached the drawings from the architect’s perspective, aiming for accuracy except when he deliberately removed things that blocked what he was trying to show. Quite lovely.
Additional exhibits were letters and manuscripts of Abraham Lincoln which was interesting in a historical sense and Embracing Modernism: Ten Years of Drawings Acquisitions. I went through the modern drawings fairly quickly as modernism is not my favorite art genre but I was able to find some things that I liked. An Andrew Wyeth portrait of a man in a hat from the back and a Jamie Wyeth portrait of Andy Warhol. Saul Steinberg, Egon Schiele, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, all shown in the press release from the site at this link. http://www.themorgan.org/sites/default/files/pdf/press/EmbracingModernismPressRelease.pdf There were also a few representational Picasso’s and a Matisse. Enough things I liked to offset the rest which didn’t really move me.
So, on to the Flickrs.
Andy G.
pi domi
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57956491%40N08/16419756121
hands on hips
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tvcathyuk/16427395311
Pic-28 with new beige booties
https://www.flickr.com/photos/99244229%40N04/16403323476
Heather
https://www.flickr.com/photos/123478076%40N08/16246666829
Sissy Ginny
https://www.flickr.com/photos/44116295%40N04/16196586207
P2010031 - new dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/32184464%40N07/16236113519
Humbled
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78801732%40N03/16360740846
Trish full body (41)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tattoogurl/4692628564
BOGO
https://www.flickr.com/photos/93756424%40N05/16216924950
Erie Gala 2014 IMG_0888
https://www.flickr.com/photos/deedrakay/16267705317
Dorothy dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicolebuxton/4802628787
Impossible dress Project
https://www.flickr.com/photos/128370657%40N07/16456476005
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You mean you called tech support & actually got someone you could understand? For years whenever I call Verizon, Akamai, Yahoo, IX hosting, or Google, I always seem to get some guy named Mohammed that can barely speak any English.
My sister, with Time/Warner always gets connected to some guy who sounds like Gandhi, with a very difficult accent to understand. She says it's too hard to get mad at them when they screwed up something or can't understand them, because she keeps visualizing she's talking to someone who looks like Gandhi, & probably only makes $4 a day.
Mohammed is always polite & friendly (even though I can't understand what he's saying most of the time), but I feel very annoyed that they would route tech calls from Americans to middle eastern countries with outrageous human & women's rights violations, that suppress all freedoms except the freedom to shoot, behead, whip, or torture innocent people. And they all hate us over there anyway.
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Hi Betty,
I'm pretty xenophobic when it comes to tech people, my hearing is not so great and the accent definitely makes it harder for me to understand them. My last tech had an accent but it wasn't pronounced and he spoke clearly and slowly which helps. One of my biggest peeves is people who leave a voice mail and speak very quickly, slurring their words and racing through their message. Especially if they have an accent. There have been times when I've played messages back numerous times and could not figure out the person's name or be sure of the phone number. If you're leaving a message, speak slowly and repeat your name and telephone number at the beginning and end of the message. If it's a long message and I miss your phone number I don't want to have to play the whole thing back again just to hear the number at the end. Particularly if I have to play it back numerous times until I think I know what it is. I have trouble speaking on the phone for the same reason. Some people when asked to identify themselves say their names very quickly. Then if I ask them to spell it, they spell it very quickly. They haven't figured out that while they know who they are, I'm trying to figure it out. But I guess I'm just another cranky old man.
Andy G.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Shall we talk about the weather? Let’s. Another week , another storm, although the forecasters say this should be the last storm of the season. Of course forecasters also swore the Titanic wouldn’t sink. And there were snow flurries on my bar mitzvah which I think was April 9th, so while I fondly hope there are no more storms I’m not ready to put my walking cleats away for the season. Left work early on Thursday when I saw the snow coming down steadily and made it home before the Port Authority got mobbed; bus ran slowly but I had a seat and was grateful the trip only took about a half hour longer than usual. I wore my boots, not my cleats, as I knew there would be accumulations of snow. What I wasn’t prepared for was the fact that underneath the snow and slush the sidewalk had frozen. So I literally slid a good portion of my walk back to the bus station. Very scary as I almost fell down more than a dozen times. And half way there I noticed that it felt like I had a pool of water in one of my boots. Very unpleasant feeling to have to experience while walking or on a bus ride. When I got home I pulled off the boot and a cup of water poured out, the boot seam had split. Two days later my shoe was still damp. And I now have about two feet of snow in my back yard so it doesn’t appear I will be able to turn my car around back there any time soon.
All I can say is, it’s enough, OK, were tired of it and it needs to stop. Hope Mother Nature is listening.
Anyway, today I walked up to MOBIA, the Museum of Biblical Art, on Broadway and 61st street. As it was a short distance I walked back as well. It was cold and on the walk back my eyes started to tear but I digress. This is more than likely my last visit to MOBIA at this location as the building MOBIA is in is owned by the American Bible Society; MOBIA is not affiliated with the Society in anyway, and the Society has put the building up for sale, which means MOBIA needs to find a new space. It will be some time before they relocate as the current exhibit is open until June. And the current exhibit is a blockbuster, Sculpture in the Age of Donatello. 23 sculptures from the Florence Cathedral have been packed up and brought to the United States for the first time ever. Most of them have never left Italy. The logistics of packing and transporting these bigger than life statues must have been daunting. The insurance too. And MOBIA is their only venue, once it’s over they go home so it’s really a once in a lifetime chance to see them. The museum is expecting big crowds, they are selling tickets online, but my brother went earlier in the week and said that he was able to buy a ticket onsite and there weren’t crowds of people there. The museum opens at 10AM and I arrived about 9:45 AM and there were a few people sitting in the lobby. By the time we were allowed to go up only a few more had arrived and there were never more than a dozen people in what is a large exhibition space at any time. It has to be a large exhibition space as several of the sculptures are full size, probably six or seven feet tall. Very impressive. Donatello is the star but there are also pieces by Brunelleschi, Nanni di Banco, Luca della Robbia and others. There are two larger-than-life seated evangelist figures, St Luke and St John, made to flank the church’s main western portal, by Nanni and Donatello which are awesome. The main piece is Donatello’s full size sculpture of the old Testament prophet Habakkuk which is very impressive. In an article I link to below Donatello repeatedly shouted at the statue, Speak, damn you, speak!,” while carving it. You might expect it to. The exhibition space has been done up with white walls and a shiny white floor. There are white mesh hangings from the ceiling with comprehensive and interesting wall texts on them. I confess I read them all and found them useful in viewing the sculptures but I can’t say I retained much of that knowledge. I’m glad there won’t be a test. This is a link to the MOBIA website with a very good description of the show as well as a slide show at the top showing many of the pieces. http://mobia.org/exhibitions/sculpture-in-the-age-of-donatello#slideshow7 and this is a review in the New York Review of Books that speaks specifically about the Habakuk http://tinyurl.com/q7y4z9l
Splendid show, I’m glad I was able to see it.
Let’s walk over to the Flickrs.
Andy G.
There's a story behind this
https://www.flickr.com/photos/78801732%40N03/16686156356
You big sissy you!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/64419249%40N06/16469268882
girlie look 2015
https://www.flickr.com/photos/123462347%40N02/16442138376
DSC03792
https://www.flickr.com/photos/117560929%40N03/16292851508
Recently Kaige told us he wishes he could be both a boy and a girl because he likes playing princesses as much as ninjas and he doesn
https://www.flickr.com/photos/irkajavasdream/16060993034
Shiny maid...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/shinypenny77/15864159614
beautiful cd terrible backdrop for so much beauty
https://www.flickr.com/photos/123125505%40N06/16558554418/
Helping boy (center) in drag
https://www.flickr.com/photos/104546207%40N08/16674390552
Sussie/Dave in his little baby outfit. He needs to be fed lots of hot man cream.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/118871084%40N05/15834227764
IMG_7200
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chantal_fouet/16158274950
Womanless Contestant
https://www.flickr.com/photos/104546207%40N08/16273017740
ms 1943-54 AB-107
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dboo/16509961621
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
No snow today or freezing temperatures or sleet or gale force winds so what is there to complain about? Well, it did rain most of the day but it was a light rain and the temperature made it into the upper 40’s and the wind was only occasional so I will keep mum so as not to ape the woman with the little boy in the old joke. The woman and the little boy are at the beach when an enormous wave washes up and snatches the child out deep into the ocean. The woman jumps up and starts wailing and crying and imploring God to return her baby boy. Suddenly an enormous wave washes up on the beach again, this time returning the boy to his mother. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you she cried as she hugged him dearly. Then she stopped and looked up and said, he had a hat!
Anyway, as it is March 14th, I can only hope that we are heading in a spring like direction. I was a little surprised when I went out to the grocery store this morning that it was still dark out until I remembered that we turned the clocks ahead last week. And the snow has disappeared from the front of my property, although there was still enough in the backyard to prevent my turning around. But if things continue the way they’ve been, this should be my last week of backing out of the driveway. And without the wall of snow it was a little easier driving backwards although in backing up I drive the way I walk; I have a tendency to drift to the side.
I considered going to the Japan Society for an exhibit that I know I will enjoy but I would have wanted to walk there and back and with the rain and its opening hour of 11AM I decided to put it off until next week. Instead I walked up to the Frick museum to see their current exhibit, Coypel’s Don Quixote Tapestries: Illustrating a Spanish Novel in Eighteenth-Century. My brother had seen it and did not rave about it so I wasn’t expecting much but it turned out to be a pleasant visit. Charles Coypel, an 18th Century French artist, painted 28 illustrations of scenes from the novel Don Quixote which were subsequently woven into tapestries by the Gobelin manufactory in Paris. The Frick had three of them in their oval room; I would guess they are about 12 feet by 12 feet. All three, as I imagine all 28, have the same perimeter design, something that took me a little while to notice, although some are mirror reflections. The painting, or cartoon, is woven into the middle and they are comical scenes showing Quixote’s antics. There were also two enormous tapestries, inspired by Coypel’s art, one that was probably 24 feet wide, by the workshop of Peter Van Den Hecke, an 18th Century Flemish artist. These are from the Frick’s collection; purchased by Mr. Frick and bequeathed to his son, Childs, who gave them to the museum in 1965. It was their first time on exhibit in ten years. I’ve mentioned the Frick’s ability to pull things out of the attic and this is just another instance of that. Additionally there were five of Copyel’s oil paintings which I found evocative of Francois Boucher. In doing a little Googling I found a passage from a book in which it says that Coypel’s painting The Rape of Europa is a remarkable anticipation of Boucher’s Triumph of Venus. Here are links to the two paintings so you can tell me if you agree. http://daystarvisions.com/Pix/Masters/Full/Francois_Boucher-Triumph_of_Venus-1740-Web_Gallery_ver-edited_DC-lvl11.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/No%C3%ABl-Nicolas_Coypel_-_The_Rape_of_Europa_-_WGA05595.jpg Additionally the exhibit had 18 engravings that illustrated editions of Don Quixote that were on loan from the Hispanic Society. This is a link to the Frick website description of the exhibit. http://www.frick.org//exhibitions/don_quixote This is a link to the Frick press release about the exhibit. http://www.frick.org/sites/default/files/pdf/press/DQ_Press_Release_V5_web_0.pdf Increase the magnification of the page to better see the illustrations.
Very enjoyable, glad I went.
And now let’s take a little stroll over to the Flickrs.
Andy G.
Cute Little Trap
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130580623%40N08/16319336298
Ready for school
https://www.flickr.com/photos/82499223%40N08/15875620334
Gabriela Bocaccio
https://www.flickr.com/photos/46955578%40N06/16513403626
Glamour-Girl´″°³♡
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cross_dresser/16364758790
aliina-aliina A few new ones in this album
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129919732@N03/
IMG_0449
https://www.flickr.com/photos/63419548%40N00/16547053105
Hostess Irene
https://www.flickr.com/photos/irene-michaela/15932735703
Ana Mancini
https://www.flickr.com/photos/68958443%40N08/16515355136
Service With A Smile :)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/30517065%40N00/16354323137
101_7156
https://www.flickr.com/photos/boobs22/16533446356
More pink room malarkey...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/shinypenny77/16364382748
LBD
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110386909%40N08/16326994638
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Well I certainly hope this is the last time we need to discuss snow in the weekly Flickr, at least until next year. I mean really, it’s officially spring, it’s enough now. As snow storms go, and I’m certainly glad this one has gone, it wasn’t too bad. It started late in the day yesterday so I managed to get home without any difficulties. We got about 3 or 4 inches before it finally ended sometime during the night. And even though my man came over and moved it around early this morning, it’s currently in the mid 40’s and most of it has melted. Here’s to real spring like weather coming soon.
It wasn’t a bad day today, it was chilly when I headed into the City but not bitter cold and there was no wind so the walk wasn’t bad. I wandered over to 333 East 47th Street, between Second and First Avenues, to the Japan Society for a show that should definitely appeal to Betty, Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection. I expected to thoroughly enjoy this show and I was not disappointed. It was filled with the colorful wood block prints that I have come to appreciate, along with some scrolls and manga. And a small Manet etching of a cat. To quote from the website, “The exhibition is divided into five sections: Cats and People, Cats as People, Cats versus People, Cats Transformed and Cats and Play.” The first image in the exhibit was by Hiroshige, the artist who opened up this world to me when I saw his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If I’ve done this properly you should see this print below. In some of the prints cat are peripheral to the central action, just hanging out being cats. In cats as people there are prints of Kabuki actors depicted as cats although the accompanying text explains that viewers of that era would have recognized them instantly. In cats versus people, the cats loom large and menacing taking up a great section of the print and being depicted as malevolent creatures. In cats at play we see them like children playing games, or enjoying a spa. There are three videos on the website, one of which shows the cat’s spa. Go to full screen for the videos as they are otherwise very small. They had intact sheets of paper doll cats that were mirror images, front and back, with clothing, also front to back, for children to cut out and create the fully clothed cats. The text pointed out how rare it was to find sheets like this intact since the whole point was to cut them up. In cats and people we see people cuddling up to and playing with their cats, in one which unfortunately isn’t on the website, we see a cat from the rear heading into his mistress’ bosom seeking warmth.
This is a link to the Japan Society website http://www.japansociety.org/page/programs/gallery/life-of-cats When you get to the website, as you scroll down you’ll see the three videos as well as a gallery of images. If you click on the first image in each section it opens up a full page slide show for each of the images in the exhibit. This is a link to a NY Times article on the exhibit with a slide show. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/arts/design/review-life-of-cats-spotlights-a-centuries-old-fascination-in-japan.html
Let me reiterate that this is one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve seen this season. And I’m pleased to say that on May 1st I can go back for a second viewing as they will be rotating 50 items out to be replaced by 50 new ones. Something to look forward to.
And on that pleasant note, lets catwalk over to the Flickrs.
Andy G.
My Mothers Encouragement Hi Britney, very, very pretty!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britney_smith/16823444925
Golden Years
https://www.flickr.com/photos/95644297%40N07/14000171880
Contestant
https://www.flickr.com/photos/104546207%40N08/16207958623
What's up?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chantal_fouet/16328362488
prom date
https://www.flickr.com/photos/52912530%40N04/15910452053
Girls-Force-boy-into-a-dres
https://www.flickr.com/photos/radicalfeministrule/16529806542/
118
https://www.flickr.com/photos/131158978%40N06/16362786450
2
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57904782%40N08/15056549670
newest dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10792226%40N00/15950547204
cf301p
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124061677%40N05/16384787057
sissy Sarah Jane
https://www.flickr.com/photos/23788525%40N06/16374963588
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Yep. Seen those kitty pix before online. Pretty cool & some bizarre stuff. These were a few of my favorites.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to my Weekly Flickr.
It still continues to be spring only chronologically, very cold and windy this morning. The forecast called for possible snow showers and while I saw a few flakes I’m grateful that nothing became of it.
I’m sitting here waiting for my plumber to arrive. I was having breakfast Wednesday morning when I heard noise from the basement and when I went downstairs I was greeted by steam coming out of the boiler and a pool of water on the floor. This took place at 4AM so I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it aside from stand there gawking, feeling like a ninny, until the hour got to be a little more reasonable. I waited until 5:50 AM and called my plumber, much to my chagrin I woke him up, but he said he would come to take a look and showed up after a little while.
Something in the mechanism on the boiler was clogged which caused the pressure to build, hence the steam and the leaking out of the water. He took it out, cleaned it, and put it back in. He checked to make sure the tank wasn’t cracked which was a concern. My boiler is 25 years old and the hot water heater is 17 years old; we discussed replacements and agreed that he would replace the boiler in the summer when they’re less expensive and it won’t matter if it’s shut down for a few days. For the last several years he’s mentioned that it’s time to replace the hot water heater as their life span is generally considered to be ten to twelve years so I’ve been living on borrowed time for a while. Of course he always laughs and says that his is just as old. I’ve been considering it but the fact that it appears solid has always made me procrastinate. But the next night I dreamed about the hot water heater going and flooding the basement and it haunted me all that day so I called and made an appointment for a new one.
My fear of flooding the basement is real. I have a large part of my collection in the basement, all of it paper, so it would be a real catastrophe if the tank ever burst. The hot water heater holds forty gallons of water and if it cracks, as the water leaks out, it will refill just as if I was taking a shower. So if it cracked right after I left one morning it would flood water out all day, for 11 hours, thousands of gallons of water. A nightmare to say the least. The boiler only holds ten gallons and when the water runs out there’s no automatic feed. And once the water runs out the boiler has an emergency switch which shuts it down. Even though the heaters usually fail slowly with you noticing a little water it’s not unheard of to have them just crack and that’s the scenario I want to avoid. The joys of home ownership.
This morning I wandered up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw two minor exhibits. First was, The Plains Indians; Artists of Earth and Sky. This was native American arts and crafts, more crafts than arts though. It was filled with coats, dresses, robes and hides made from buffalo skins, as well as paintings on the skins. There were also head dresses that were probably one of the few things the movies accurately portrayed. There were pipes and carvings and other items of day to day life. It was interesting to see but not really something I can get overly excited about. What was most interesting to me about the exhibit was that so many of the items caem from European collections. But in thinking about it that shouldn’t surprise me, the Europeans have always been fascinated by our Native Americans and the Old West. There was a German writer in the 19th Century, Karl May, who wrote many novels about the Old West, his recurring characters were Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. What was fascinating about the books is that he never visited most of the places he was depicting in these novels. I have a friend who grew up in Hungary and he told me about reading May when he was a child. This is a link to the Met website showing the objects in the exhibit.
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId=%7b254A181E-CA25-4BC9-B15A-A167688D711B%7d&rpp=60&pg=1
After the Indian show I walked over to the drawings corridor where the current group was recently installed. The Met has thousands of drawings, etchings and engravings and can only put a small amount on view so they rotate what’s up every several months. The starting section had a theme of horses and men, beginning with Picasso’s The Watering Hole, gouache on tan paperboard, depicting boys washing and watering their horses. It was the basis for a larger painting which he never did and it showed an early usage of his boy leading a horse image. This is a link http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/483414 Continuing along there were several Toulouse Lautrec’s, Degas and John Singer Sargent and a wonderful drawing by Theodore Gericault, Two Draft Horses with Sleeping Driver. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/337192 Also a very nice Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, in the museum it is referred to as Horse Attended by An Oriental Groom but when I went looking for it I found it under the name Landscape with a Horse Held by a Page http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/459754 The rest of the exhibit had some names I’m unfamiliar with but several things by artists I do know that struck me as very nice. An engraving by Jean Etienne Liotard, Self Portrait. I’ve mentioned Liotard before as being someone I discovered at a wonderful exhibit at the Frick where there were numerous portrayals of Empress Maria Theresa, the mother of Marie Antoinette, and her family. One a wonderful small drawing of Marie as a child. This is the self portrait from the exhibit. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/334135?rpp=30&pg=1&ft=liotard+self+portrait&pos=2 A woodcut by Lucas Cranach, The Stag Hunt http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/383708 And finally a very sweet drawing by John Linnell, a British artist of the 19th Century, Portrait of a Mother and Child. A pencil drawing augmented by just a bit of color on their lips. Sentimental but charming to me. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/671454
And that’s that. Let’s see what’s happening in our world now.
Andy G.
framed
https://www.flickr.com/photos/knessia/16570474906
Tartan Skir.: Three (2015)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pollygraphix/16613877085
I am back , happy hour realness
https://www.flickr.com/photos/49254983%40N00/16567737632
Reluctant Cross-Dresser !
https://www.flickr.com/photos/116315009@N08/16841538496
IMG_1371s
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruwoldtm/16444320708
Mirror Skirt
https://www.flickr.com/photos/silverhalogenide/16605298915
Looks like a good obedient boy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/51886658%40N04/15048108817/in/pool-
Tracey is sitting pretty
https://www.flickr.com/photos/frillyknicks/16431782287
Florentina Satin Sissy Maid
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nikki_e-cd/16638989525
Sissy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/26984420%40N08/16048099434
Debbie's February
https://www.flickr.com/photos/saralegs/16444463337
Party Queen
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124114562%40N08/16512272620
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With water heaters & furnaces your mileage may vary... But that's the keyword, the mileage, not the age.
A 20 year old car with only 10,000 miles on it will be in much better shape than a 2 year old car with 100,000 miles on it.
An undersized furnace put in a large drafty house so it has to work hard all winter will wear out much sooner than a big furnace in a smaller better insulated house. Is the furnace running most of the day & night in the winter or just kicking in a handful of times through the day & night? Are you keeping the place at 68F or 78F? Likewise with the HW tank. Is it running almost scalding water for a family of 5 kids, for several apartments, who all love very long showers or just for 1 or 2 people?
Just because a unit had a clogged or blown part is no reason to consider replacing the whole thing regardless of how old it is, unless they can see obvious signs it's gonna die or blow soon.
Of course you never store anything that can't get wet or at least a little damp in the basement, especially papers. Being the lowest point on your property, water can come in from many sources. Just a cool night after a hot or humid day can make things very damp or wet down there just from condensation.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Yesterday was a nice day, in the 60’s, but with no sun. Today it’s sunny but it’s cooler, only in the 50’s and I hear the wind howling. But it’s not snowing.
Also yesterday, for the second time, for no reason, my chrome bookmarks disappeared. Just gone. I forgot I had saved the answer and spent a lot of time Googling it until I found the answer again. After I brought them back, without thinking I clicked on restore to bring my daily tabs back up. As soon as I did this, the bookmarks disappeared again. So I went to repeat the process and this time it wouldn’t do it saying a file using the program was still open. But it doesn’t say which file is open. And nothing I did closed the file, including rebooting. Finally I gave up and just imported the last set of bookmarks from October then tried to remember which ones were missing and recreate them. Very annoying. I now have a calendar item that recurs every two weeks reminding me to save the bookmarks. The fact that this is something that happens on a regular basis, based on what I see when Googling the problem, is remarkable. Why hasn’t Google addressed this?
Anyway, I’m off to the Jersey shore to spend the day with friends. A Happy Holiday to Betty and all the board members, tomorrow looks to be a beautiful day. Hope everyone enjoys it.
Andy G.
day250-43 AnkRouge White Blouse and Red Skirt
https://www.flickr.com/photos/yumiko_misaki/16455444209
Channeling His Future Sissy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinadupree/16470079700
Plays the part well.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/129919732%40N03/16700124985/
Rufus photobombing
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10792226%40N00/16496803238
Hoppner, John - 'Master Meyrick (William Henry Meyrick)'. c.1793
https://www.flickr.com/photos/97048587@N04/16751436457
DSCN0370
https://www.flickr.com/photos/83691018@N03/16151300414
Fairy Princess!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rgaines/16558052050
CIMG9652
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dressrei/16142104924
technicolor5
https://www.flickr.com/photos/53899402@N04/16553971858
Another Chatty Cathy?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/60741642@N06/16098014354
bimbojami
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jaminheelz/16119378144
Sexy Bitch 1
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tgirlkitty/16081097333
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Golly. I never lost bookmarks on any machine or browser. I don't use chrome much though. For a few years now, well over 90% of my surfing in done with the Pale Moon browser. I imported my firefox bookmarks to chrome, opera, safari, & Pale Moon over 3 years ago. They're all still there. But I don't syc my browsers to other machines. Too much a risk of transferring bugs, tracking cookies, malicious toolbars (browser helpers), spyware, viruses, & other malware to other machines.
I just add bookmarks as I need them to another machine. I also have nothing set for auto-update, not even the websites or Betty's. I update manually, only after I make a backup. For my home machines, I just back up everything, & then update everything once a week or so. At Betty's, backups are made daily on the servers, plus make a backup at home off the servers almost daily (sometimes I miss a day or skip a day when not much changed since the last backup). I find if there's a server failure, the backups on the server may also fail. We almost never lose anything anymore since I save backups of Betty's at home more often.
When I was forced to give up XP & put windows 7 on my machines, everything was a clean new install. So I got the Firefox & Pale Moon files I needed from the XP backup, & put them in the new browser installations. Bookmarks, preferences, & even the password manager got transferred over fine.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
Well, March came in like a lion and went out like a lion and April came in like a lion and here we are on April 11th hoping that the gentler beast has arrived. The past week was cold and damp, really raw and ugly. It was cool when I left the house this morning but it was warmer in the City so I just wore my heavy flannel shirt. On the walk up to the Met the wind was really blowing and I hadn’t worn my hat. When I got inside, after showing my membership, I went to the men’s room. When I turned around to wash my hands and looked in the mirror I looked like Einstein. The wind had really done a job on my hair. It also pointed out how much less of it there is. But it’s currently close to 60 degrees and the forecast is for more agreeable weather in the days to come. One can only hope.
I had a splendid time with my friends last week and managed to navigate both ways without any errors. And with the sun setting later I was able to leave before dark and enjoy half the drive in the light. A boon to these ancient eyes.
Not a lot going on in the art world currently so I walked up to the Met to catch up on a few things. The Met has four Norman Rockwell paintings but doesn’t generally have them on display. But I’m pleased that they have recently put one up in the modern wing, Expressman. It’s the original art for a Saturday Evening Post cover and it’s quite nice. Hopefully you’ll see an image of it below. This is actually a snap my brother took when he visited the museum a few weeks ago. Normally I post a link but there’s a note up on the Met site that says they can only show a thumbnail image for copyright reasons. The Modern wing has really become a chore to navigate. I don’t like the fact that when you enter on the second floor, at the entrance to the left of the main corridor, you go through a very dark installation. I almost walked into the guard because I couldn’t see him. A lawsuit waiting to happen. And it wasn’t easy to find the section with the Rockwell, even the guard wasn’t sure exactly where it was, the Met completely rehung the Modern wing in the last few years and I’m not happy with the way they have done it. But I thought I remembered that the Rockwell was hung in the same room as one of their Hoppers and it was. While I was in the wing I paid my respects to the two Hoppers they have on display, From Williamsburg Bridge and Table for Ladies. The Met has 26 artworks by Hopper, oils, watercolors and etchings and drawings but unfortunately only display a few at a time. The Whitney, which was the beneficiary of Hopper’s estate has thousands of items and similarly only displays a small percentage, will be opening their new quarters downtown in the meat packing district in May and I’m hoping that with the much larger facility more of his art will be on display. He’s a favorite of mine.
The current exhibit that I visited was Captain Linnaeus Tripe Photographer of India and Burma, 1852–1860. These are fascinating images of a place and time lost to history aside from this photographic catalog described on the site as, “ a visual inventory of celebrated archaeological sites and monuments, religious and secular buildings—some now destroyed—as well as geological formations and scenic vistas.” Remarkable photography for any age but especially the mid nineteenth century. The cards next to the images explained some of his photographic techniques such as retouching clouds since blue didn’t show up very well on his plates and the way he mounted his camera to stay horizontal while moving the lens so as to capture an enormously tall structure without distortion. It’s pointed out that he seldom has people in his scenes as they would be blurred due to movement. He took many of his pictures of what would normally be crowded squares by shooting early in the day and as a military commander he was able to arrange to have the areas cordoned off while he was shooting. In one he shows two people next to a structure so as to give the viewer an idea of its great height. A very interesting show which I enjoyed more than I thought I would.
This is a link to the Met website description of the exhibit. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/linnaeus-tripe
This is a link to the 40 images in the exhibit. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId=%7bD5B4DCBA-9368-4F3F-82F5-65BF1ED5CE7E%7d&rpp=40&pg=1
And now, on the Flickrs.
Andy G.
Alice
https://www.flickr.com/photos/corselette/17075409205
Schhol-Boys-in-Skirts
https://www.flickr.com/photos/radicalfeministrule/16642868670
Lolita Princess Doll
https://www.flickr.com/photos/89523848@N06/16826466361
Atticus loves playing dress up.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/torrie/16761232669
romper!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10792226@N00/16813604062
Metallic Red Dress
https://www.flickr.com/photos/davina_wayne/16779501306
Glamour-Girl
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cross_dresser/16618203418
Overdue post from my party. But here you go!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ziggychris/16627900407
New transvestite body
https://www.flickr.com/photos/125249336@N05/16785742405
Bubblegum Bitch
https://www.flickr.com/photos/julieb85/16596560880
Men in skirts !
https://www.flickr.com/photos/neilmoralee/16796841261
All dolled-up for the Wayout Club
https://www.flickr.com/photos/52113291@N02/16630505018