Hooray, The Summer Flickr is here at last!

[Angela M...]

Hi Andy, I am sure you will have more than enough to keep you busy in retirement. Are you going to read all those papers you have been collecting? I had a thing for Architectural Digest magazines and have most of the issues from the late 60's to the early 90's. I frequently read the old issues when I am dusting them off and more often in the winter in front of the fire. These days it is laying on the bed with the air conditioning on.

[andyg0404]

Hi Angela,

Yes, I will definitely catch up on reading my collections as well as watching television, something I really haven't done for the last 20 years.

Andy G.

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

I never complain about the heat but I just got back from my second walk of the day and I will just say that it’s 95 degrees and even I found it a tad warm. Definitely need to drink water and keep hydrated on a day like this.

My first week back at work wasn’t too bad, certainly working from home four days a week helps. On Monday I took my normal commute into the City but was a little disconcerted when I saw an article about a collision in the Lincoln Tunnel that morning. It occurred at 7:45 AM with one bus ramming the bus ahead in the rear. A number of people were said to have suffered minor injuries. Although I always remember what someone said about surgery; minor surgery is what happens to other people. If I undergo it, it’s major. I catch my bus at 5:30 AM so I wouldn’t have been affected by the massive tie up but my heart skipped a beat when they announced which buses were involved, the one that got hit was the same bus I had ridden in earlier. That was a little close for comfort. I’m grateful I wasn’t on it and also grateful it didn’t affect my commute. The commute is bad enough under normal circumstances, I don’t need delays to make it worse.

I don’t know exactly how many years I’ve been coming to Betty’s but my first visit was well before I started the Weekly Flickr. For quite some time I was a lurker even though I was unfamiliar with the term and didn’t realize it applied to me. Then during one of Betty’s periodic lockdowns against the spammers I was included and couldn’t access the site. I was very upset as I felt I had found a home. It’s a long time ago but as I recall I wrote to Lindsey and Mary Beth asking for help and they suggested I write to Betty which I did and Betty let me back in. I decided at that point that I should join and start posting. And from that point on I did. Then, ten years ago on July 22, 2006, I introduced the weekly Flickr like this:

Welcome to My Weekly Flickr, a posting that may not necessarily occur weekly but it sounds better than My random occurrence Flickr. I'm Andy G and I'll be your host today. And now for the viewing pleasure of all, allow me to present this:

And since that day, ten years ago, I think I’ve only missed one Saturday and that would have been the week I moved and didn’t have my Internet hooked up. It was also a while before I started including comments on my daily life and my museum visits. Hard to believe ten years have passed but it’s equally as hard to believe that I’m on Medicare. That’s life I guess.

Anyway, thanks to Betty for creating all this and also for giving me a forum to chat with board members and share the stuff I find.

Today I walked back up to the Metropolitan Museum and once again took a tour of India for the exhibition, Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections. This is the second and much larger Indian exhibit currently at the Met. It’s filled with more watercolors from the 16th to the 19th Century. It’s comprised of almost 100 paintings from the Kronos collection of Steven M. Kossak who was a curator at the Met for two decades, from 1986 to 2006. He started amassing the collection in the 70’s and continued collecting during his stint as curator. He avoided conflict with the museum only buying items when the Met couldn’t afford them and with the Met’s knowledge and acquiescence. And now his collection is a promised gift to the Met. This is discussed in this review of the show from the Wall Street Journal which includes images.  http://www.wsj.com/articles/indias-rajput-courts-at-the-met-1464655319  The Times has a long review of the show as well, also with images. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/arts/design/divine-pleasures-celebrates-the-colors-of-desire-in-indian-paintings.html All of the paintings show deities, demons and royals fighting, loving and playing. Each one tells a little story as well. It’s a very large exhibit with a lot to see.  This is one I particularly enjoyed, Rasalila: Krishna Dances with the Gopis (Cowmaidens). In the telling of the story, the Gopis link arms together, forming a great circle. By divine arrangement, the God Krishna dances with every cowherd maiden at once, yet each one thinks she is dancing with him alone.  http://tinyurl.com/h5esjww  And this is a link to all the images in the exhibit. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId=02cef407-c9f9-4ddc-a43d-547eed945478 The Met is lucky to be getting this collection.

And now it’s Flickr time.

Andy G.

Burgundy skirt_2

https://www.flickr.com/photos/trans_kyoko/22423079840/

Maid Charlotte and me
   
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahbright45/27433792391/

0002

https://www.flickr.com/photos/137432660@N02/25965348914/

Vesna / David

https://www.flickr.com/photos/96743750@N03/27618576725/

From Keystone 2016

https://www.flickr.com/photos/134008694@N07/26042719154/

Oh me?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kristinayoung/27026415150/

jky_043

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125915844@N07/22770649509/

37

https://www.flickr.com/photos/130352799@N08/26475178332/

3650725_1_46_1_bfc7d9b0

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141749098@N02/27463651596/

Fetish Snow White

https://www.flickr.com/photos/empresslouann/27376808200/

Wanna come play with me ?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9433783@N04/26667522413/

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

Our heat wave finally broke, today the temperature is in the 80’s.  I never complain about the heat but I wasn’t sorry to see the over 90 degree days come to an end. Before I moved to my current residence the town I lived in was serviced by Mr. Softee, the custard seller. Every night I would hear the siren sound of his irritating pop goes the weasel song booming and would have to battle internally as to whether I was going to give in and indulge. Mr. Softee didn’t follow me so it hasn’t been an issue. But there is a Carvel in town within walking distance and for the longest time 12 year old Andy has been badgering elderly Andy that he really wanted one. I finally gave in on Wednesday night and took 12 year old Andy to the Carvel for a medium chocolate custard cone with chocolate sprinkles. Aside from the fact that it cost almost $6 which elderly Andy found outrageous we both agreed that the cone was outstandingly delicious. Elderly Andy will do his best to stave off his youthful alter ego for a while before giving in again. Dessert can be a really slippery slope for someone who had a weight problem as a child.

Aside from that, not a lot to report. I just read a book that was personally recommended to me by two friends as a must read. The NY Times gave it a rave review and it was written by Terry Hayes who wrote or co-wrote the Mad Max movies. The title is I Am Pilgrim and it’s a thriller. The paperback edition is close to 800 pages and I regret to say it really wasn’t all that thrilling. The last hundred pages or so kept my attention but I have to confess it didn’t make up for the 700 pages I had to slog through to get there. I look forward to discussing this with my two friends to see why they rated it so highly.

This morning I walked up to the Metropolitan Museum for the latest rotation of their drawing corridor. I wouldn’t say this was one of their really outstanding hangings but everything in it was quality and there were a few things I especially liked. The Met posted no images for the exhibit which is unusual but I found a few images on their website and on the web. The Met’s newly designed website is hopeless. This is a link the website description of the exhibit. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2016/drawings-and-prints-july-rotation

The Met is going to feature one highlight per week from the collection of the Department of Drawings and Prints through April 2017 to celebrate their drawing collection. This week it’s by Antoine Watteau who I wrote about seeing at the Frick on my vacation. This is a red chalk drawing of the head of a man. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/334650  I see from the site that I’ve missed a Goya, The Colossus, a drawing of a giant. Next week it will be Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves: The Three Crosses by Rembrandt which in a coincidence I just saw at the Morgan Library on my vacation. 

Speaking of Goya, there were five prints in this display, two from Los Caprichos, two from Disasters of War and Landscape of Trees. I’ve been to a number of Goya exhibitions and seen Los Caprichos and Disasters of War which are brilliant but horrifying depictions of man’s cruelty. This is the Landscape etching.  You need to enlarge it to really enjoy it. It’s very rare, you’ll see on the site that it’s one of only four impressions printed by Goya during his life.  http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/690986 This is from Los Caprichos, And there’s nothing to be done https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-in-spain/a/goya-disasters-of-war which will give you a sense of what I’m describing about his take on man’s cruelty.

This is Theodore Gericault’s Boxers. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/357998 Two men, one black, one white, preparing to go at it bare knuckled.

John Sloan was a member of the Ashcan school of art and this is a nice etching, Anschutz on Anatomy. The website describes it thusly:  “Thomas Anshutz was Sloan's teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The scene depicted shows Anshutz delivering a lecture on anatomy to Robert Henri's students at the New York School of Art in 1905. Pictured in the audience are Walter Pach, William Glackens, Maurice Prendergast, George Bellows, Robert Henri and his wife Linda, and Sloan and his wife Dolly.” I wish I was on more intimate terms with each of them to be able to pick them out of the picture.  http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/367875

And finally a mezzotint, which is a special kind of etching, by William Pether, an artist I had never encountered previously. An Academy by Lamplight, done after Joseph Wright of Derby. I was really taken by this, a realistic but dreamlike atmosphere of six young men, boys really, sketching a statue. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/359909  This is the actual Wright painting which hangs in the Yale Center for British Art.  http://fineartamerica.com/featured/academy-by-lamplight-joseph-wright-of-derby.html

And with that, let’s toddle off to the Flickrs.

Andy G.

White Girl

https://www.flickr.com/photos/145265755%40N04/28408002262/

Philly Michaela

https://www.flickr.com/photos/phillymichaela/26686671735/

726_1000

https://www.flickr.com/photos/135057179%40N04/20939500562/

Long time coming

https://www.flickr.com/photos/91219737%40N08/27562462276/

sissy bride

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141787463%40N05/27704204192/

The Secretary's Amusement

https://www.flickr.com/photos/60741642%40N06/27079057273/

Picture 129 (2)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/48779471%40N04/26636722563/

Rio Laurie

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9352703%40N06/7648756464/

DSC_0087

https://www.flickr.com/photos/44815144%40N07/7640650522/

DSC07211

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mimo-momo/27096666104/

Lucy

https://www.flickr.com/photos/boyswillbegirls/26008026786/

[samantha1]

hi andy

that is a tad  expensive as cones go at $6 ,almost ÂŁ4.00,hope it was worth it.Did you also have one!

[Betty]

$6 for an ice cream cone? Holy crap, you can get a quart or more ice cream for that much at supermarkets around here. Ice cream sandwich for 35 cents at the corner store too. Mr. Softee cones are $1.25 here. No custard though. Just chocolate, vanilla, & strawberry ice cream. A wide assortments of toppings is 25 cent extra. Haven't had any in years, but I read about the prices. Partially freezing some milk with chocolate powder stirred in it taste almost as good. As long as you remember to pull it out once in a while to stir & chop it up to keep it slushy, so it don't freeze into a hard rock of ice.

I'm surprised to read some people are paying $6 or more for a tiny cup of coffee in trendy coffee shops around here. It costs them 2-20 cents to make a cup, unless it's a rare imported kind. No wonder the coffee shop owners drive around in brand new Audis, Mercedes & BMWs. If you can afford a car like that every year or 2, you're charging way to much for your coffee.

[Angela M...]

Yes back when I was working I would buy Kona coffee beans from Hawaii to grind myself and it was $23 / pound back then. When I visited Hawaii I fell in love with this wonderful coffee but after paying the price in Canada I stopped loving it so much. I think today's price is about $32 / pound now over here. I treat myself to Starbucks special roasts once in awhile when they have a new one out and some are very good. Since I stopped wine tastings I have developed a taste for good coffees but they can be pricey. I don't drink more than one or two cups a day now though. I stopped at my local corner shop last week for my Lottery ticket and found they are selling Ice cream. I got a cup filled with two large scoops of chocolate fudge brownie for $2.25 and it was good but I don't eat ice cream very often either.

[Betty]

Except for a few very rare & hard to produce types, it's a rip-off. Investigations proved it cost less than 1-10% the sale price to make, brew, & serve most of those coffees. And it's less healthy than the cheaper coffee that is full of natural antioxidants. I praise coffee as a treatment for COPD, but pure caffeine doesn't work as well as a good normal cup of coffee, because normal coffee has other healthy stuff in it. Indeed, taking too much caffeine doesn't increase the help it gives COPD victims. By taking more you get de-sensitized to it, or become addicted to it, to the point it has no effect, does not help COPD, or you'll get headaches without the caffeine fix.

[Angela M...]

Being British, I am hooked on tea, strong black tea with a touch of milk and sugar. I drink quite a lot of it so when I miss my tea I do get a headache if I go too long without some. I have cut down quite a bit from when I was working though as I would usually drink about 15 to 20 cups a day. Now I am busy and out quite a bit so I drink water more than I ever did before. I may have an occasional glass of wine or beer but can't do more than that because of my Meds.

[Betty]

I finally found someone else who likes their tea with a little milk & sugar in it.

People look at me like I'm crazy when I do that. Depending on the tea, I may only put a little sugar (or honey if I have it) with no milk though.

I have drank tea or coffee with no milk & sugar, if I ran out & had no money for more, but it's not my preferred way.

Without coffee, my COPD is so bad I can't even stand up or take a couple steps without getting out of breath. So I don't drink as much tea as I used too. I tried various doses & found out a lot of coffee doesn't work well. A strong cup, or a couple cups over just a couple hours helps no more than a weak cup. Actually too much has a reverse effect where about halfway through the day my COPD would get as bad as with no coffee at all, where no more extra coffee helps beyond that point. I guess just like medicine, too much is bad for you. I find a mild/weak or average cup every 2-4 hours, spread out over the day works best, with no more than 4-6 cups throughout a 24 hour period.

Before COPD I was naturally hyperactive. So I'd only have a single cup of coffee after I just woke up to get my motor going. Any more & I'd be way too high strung & hyper the rest of the day. But COPD tires you out more, where more of your energy is just spent just breathing hard trying to get enough air, while you heart is pumping overtime trying to circulate what little O2 available in the blood. All that extra pumping & breathing requires more O2 too, so the whole thing could quickly spiral desperately into an out of control cycle if one isn't careful.

Coffee helps. Caffeine & other alkaloids in coffee are very chemically similar to many of the meds used to treat COPD.

I do all sorts of things to my coffee so I'm not stuck drinking the same thing all the time, depending on what I have around. I have a single cup coffee brewer I got for free to review. I use that as a treat if I actually have ground coffee in the house. But the cheapest per cup is plain instant coffee. If I got it, brown sugar, cinnamon, honey, or instant chocolate powder is nice in it for variety. Hot days, if you stir it a lot, instant coffee will dissolve in cold water for a delicious cold summer treat with milk & sugar. Throw it in the freezer (with extra milk added) until it becomes slushy & it's almost like chocolate coffee ice cream. Vanilla is nice in it, but that stuff is so damn expensive, I haven't had any in years. I can find sales on instant chocolate powder cheaper than coffee.