Hooray, The Summer Flickr is here at last!

[Angela M...]

Hey Betty, like you I have a little single cup coffee maker that I used when traveling but in the few years or so most hotels would provide a little coffee maker in the rooms with all the supplies to make a late night or early morning cup of coffee or tea. I also have a large automatic coffee maker but have not used that in years as it would make a large pot and I would feel the need to drink all 10 cups myself as I didn't want to waste any. I just stopped using it and stored it in the cupboard for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners with family and friends. On a hot day I do make Iced coffee with a little milk or cream and put it in a small blender I have and sometimes I do add vanilla or Chocolate. I use only brown sugar now in tea or coffee but did use honey at one time but as I got older my teeth got sensitive and the honey set off the pain sometimes where as brown sugar does not do that.

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

Just got back from my second walk of the day and itā€™s a little hard to type with this giant floater in my good eye but I will persevere. Weā€™re in the dog days of Summer especially insofar as the art world is concerned. The new exhibits wonā€™t appear until the Fall so if you want to see art you have to seek it out. And today I was lucky. I took the very long walk up to the Museum of the City of New York and saw two wonderful exhibits, neither of which showed the traditional art I usually talk about.

First was an exhibit of original art from Roz Chast, a cartoonist famous for her work for The New Yorker among many other publications. Sheā€™s done many of their covers as well as cartoons for the interior. She has a very distinct style and sense of humor. I had seen a previous exhibit of her work at the Bruce Museum a number of years ago which had many things I had never seen as it included her work for the many other publications sheā€™s contributed to. Much of this exhibit was art from The New Yorker which Iā€™m familiar with but is still fun to see. There was a whole wall of original art from her memoir about her experiences with her aging parents at the end of their life, Canā€™t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? Her parents lived to an elderly age, her father 94 and her mother 96. They were close to 90 and still living in their apartment in Brooklyn when Chast tried to discuss their future and thatā€™s what the book describes. Her mother was an exceedingly difficult woman and Chast admits to a strained relationship. The pages are poignant and funny at the same time. My parents died at relatively early ages so I never had to go through anything like what she describes but as you all know I catered to my ancient relatives until their very elderly ends and many of the complaints and problems are similar.

This is a link to a video of Roz Chast creating a mural for the show http://www.mcny.org/rozchast  and this is a link to a brief discussion about the exhibit with illustrations http://untappedcities.com/2016/04/01/sneak-peek-new-yorker-cartoon-memoirs-by-roz-chast-at-the-museum-of-the-city-of-new-york/ This is a review of the exhibit from the New York Observer http://observer.com/2016/04/roz-chasts-dark-humor-at-the-museum-of-the-city-of-new-york/

The second exhibit was a surprise as I hadnā€™t known about it when I decided to visit the Museum, NEW YORK'S YIDDISH THEATER: FROM THE BOWERY TO BROADWAY. This was filled with photos, drawings, posters, costumes and other memorabilia of the Jewish theater world. These names wonā€™t mean much to many of you and most of it came before my time although Iā€™m familiar with them from my reading and love of old time entertainment. They had a few videos such as Molly Picon singing and dancing in an old Yiddish film. I was able to find it on Youtube, Molly Picon - Abi Gezunt ("Mamele", 1938)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yot_R7xIoo  Molly appeared on Broadway in the play Milk and Honey in 1961, something I remember my parents attending. Lots of photos of Menashe Skulnik who generally played comic, sad sack parts and lived to 1970 appearing on television. In 1965 he appeared on Broadway in The Zulu and the Zayda with Ossie Davis and Louis Gossett. It was a comedy with music and concerned the relationship between the Zayda, Yiddish for grandfather, and the Zulu, a black South African, when the Zulu is hired to grandfather sit Skulnik. Iā€™m sure everyone is familiar with Fiddler on the Roof which originated in Sholom Aleichamā€™s stories about Tevye. There was a video from 1939 with Maurice Schwartz playing Tevye showing a scene where he is given 24 hours to leave the town he and his family have always lived in. Couldnā€™t find that on Youtube unfortunately. Being Jewish all of this resonated with me in ways that it might not for everyone else but theater is theater and great acting is great acting regardless of ethnicity.

This is a review from the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/arts/design/new-yorks-yiddish-theater-explores-a-fractious-heritage-of-melodrama-and-musicals.html?ref=arts&_r=0  and this is from the Wall Street Journal. http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-yiddish-theater-from-the-bowery-to-broadway-review-1459806738

So, even in the dog days we can find things that amuse and delight us.

On to the Flickrs.

Andy G.

103videoclipS

https://www.flickr.com/photos/klarissakrass/28696422055/

A boy in a tee-shirt dress, nylons, flats

https://www.flickr.com/photos/111773085%40N06/28708798205/

Sissification level: Extreme!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tallulahhh/17150262527/

20130103_212810

https://www.flickr.com/photos/47231651%40N06/8344165108/

IMG_9997.JPG - Gender Bender - Jim Ganley

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125155770%40N06/27084974614/

IMG_0162

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144616764%40N04/27302344523/

ami3a

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131544457%40N02/27640887010/

Anita 0421 - little berry dress

https://www.flickr.com/photos/anita-dreamgirl/26382155255/

Lipsy Dress Jess

https://www.flickr.com/photos/103977268%40N06/27205669664/

Red Dots 2

https://www.flickr.com/photos/100207126%40N08/23338584501/

IMG_2550

https://www.flickr.com/photos/95108651%40N08/27324237574/

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

Pretty sultry weather this week, the humidity has been through the roof. I listened to the weatherman this morning and he predicted that the temperature would be 95 degrees this afternoon and feel like 107 degrees. As Iā€™ve said before, I donā€™t mind the heat but itā€™s been hard to stay dry in weather like this.

This will be brief as I have friends coming to visit today so I wonā€™t have a chance to see any great art.

Hope everyone stays cool.

Andy G.

Surrey June 2016

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lucyhamilton/27932905965/

Juliette075

https://www.flickr.com/photos/noirjuliette/27224892503/

P1010781

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahmorgan1978/27066342773/

Long time coming

https://www.flickr.com/photos/91219737@N08/27562462276/

Lucy

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

Keystone 2016

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stephaniewardlow98/25183827974/

tieba cross dresser

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nora1982/28006662685/

IMGP4005[1]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/134164999@N08/26342249435/

I found this interesting swing/chair thingy and decided to take a photo in it

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cutiemei11/26799610061/

Blonde in a Purple Tank

https://www.flickr.com/photos/secretjess/27521055226/

NEW VIDEO

https://www.flickr.com/photos/amnesiasparkles/26900486765/

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

Our very hot weather has continued on which actually isnā€™t surprising as it is August after all. Last Saturday the temperature reached 96 degrees and felt like 111 degrees. Iā€™m not sure I can actually feel the difference between 96 degrees and 111 degrees but I know that after each of my three daily walks I needed to change my clothes which were drenched. Ironically on Thursday I had to turn the heat on in my house. Not because it suddenly got a chill but due to the installation of my new boiler, something Iā€™ve been wanting to have done since last year. Itā€™s a big expense and I wanted to get it out of the way before I stop collecting a pay check. I wonā€™t miss working when I retire but I will miss the steady income. Hopefully my lifetime frugality will see me through my retirement.

I had a splendid visit with my friends last Saturday. The husband is my oldest friend in the sense that Iā€™ve known him the longest of all my friends. We went to college together so I would guess Iā€™ve known him for about 47 years. I met his wife not that long afterwards and theyā€™ve been married for 41 years. They are both retired, he was a chiropractor and she taught high school English in the NJ school system for 30 years. Then they retired to Puerto Rico but a few years ago they gave up their home in Puerto Rico and moved back to NJ as he, like me, recently qualified for Medicare and the health care system in NJ is better than in Puerto Rico. So now they just reverse the amount of time they stay in each place, that is, now theyā€™re in NJ for 9 or 10 months annually and then go to Puerto Rico for the bitter cold NJ months in the Winter. They live a fair distance from me in NJ and I donā€™t like to drive so I only get to see them for an annual visit. I wish they lived nearby so I could see them on a more regular basis.

As Iā€™ve mentioned, things are very slow in the art world currently but you can always find something to see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Today I visited galleries I donā€™t usually spend a lot of time in, Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, where I saw Design for Eternity: Architectural Models from the Ancient Americas.
It included objects, not wall art, architectural models of houses, temples and vessels, that werenā€™t meant to be what we would consider prototypes but rather were created to be put in the tombs of important individuals. Many of them are several thousand years old and in remarkably good condition. There were two items I especially enjoyed. First, Palace Model with Figures, a model of a funerary ceremony or ritual filled with a cast of characters which includes courtiers, musicians, and hunchbacks serving chicha (maize beer). http://tinyurl.com/gllskv2  In the blog posts I link to below youā€™ll find one on this model. The second one I found interesting was Ball-Court Model.  http://tinyurl.com/z5npeh5  This is a little arena where players are moving a ball around while fans sit in the stands. Very contemporary for something that may be 2000 years old.

This is a link to the Met website overview of the exhibit with illustrations of the objects. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/design-for-eternity

This is a link to a series of blog posts on the Met website discussing different items in the exhibit. As I mentioned above, thereā€™s a blog post on the funerary scene but thereā€™s also one on the Ball Court model http://tinyurl.com/hkvl927

And in a very rare occurrence, in a little while Iā€™m heading back into the City to have dinner with my eldest brother. We email and talk on the phone regularly but since my Aunt died we havenā€™t really seen each other for a visit. We would go to my Auntā€™s for holiday dinners although a few years before she passed away she decided she didnā€™t want to do that anymore. He and I are complete opposites in how we spend our day, I am a morning person and he swore when he retired he would never get up early again, an oath I think heā€™s religiously kept. Of course that makes it difficult for us to get together. When I queried him about having dinner with me I suggested a 5PM meeting and while he agreed he wrote back and said that for him that was a late lunch. Itā€™s also difficult because I am still working. When I retire I will be more agreeable to doing things later in the day and Iā€™m hoping we can get together a little more frequently. Although I doubt I will ever switch to his hours, I enjoy the mornings far too much.

Anyway, that seems to be my story this week. Letā€™s wander over to the Flickrs and see whatā€™s waiting for us.

Andy G.

0223 (2)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144616764@N04/27895042371/

Bird on a wire

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22813843@N06/27488034830/

2016-06-15_11-41-45

https://www.flickr.com/photos/claudiafenchel/27665695786/

Museum piece

https://www.flickr.com/photos/132986144@N05/27179544472/

ƉtĆ© nuageux 恋恏悂悊 Cloudy Summer

https://www.flickr.com/photos/_johanna_joya/27913685712/

2016.06-32

https://www.flickr.com/photos/samyoliver/28001754105/

Aron

https://www.flickr.com/photos/robinlindborg/2327387814/

Gorgeous dress

https://www.flickr.com/photos/14651405@N05/3518483365/

French maid

https://www.flickr.com/photos/marie-christine/8318686268/

Summer Fun

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lucyhamilton/27908043560/

Juliette084

https://www.flickr.com/photos/noirjuliette/28078107325/

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

After I paid my plumber for the boiler installation I was hoping not to see him again for a while but I woke up Friday morning to an unpleasant situation. The first thing I do upon awakening is my exercises after which I shower. When I came down from the shower on Friday morning I was dismayed to see a puddle of water on my kitchen floor with water dripping from the ceiling. My first thought was how involved and expensive a repair might be if it involved either breaking into the ceiling in search of a damaged pipe, or equally messy, having to remove the bathtub to look for same. So when it reached the sensible hour of 8:30 AM I gave my plumber a call and he responded right away saying he would be over in the morning. He showed up around 11AM, equally hoping that it wasnā€™t going to be a major demolition and refurbishment, and we went upstairs to check it out. Initially he thought it was just a matter of caulking having receded but then he noticed that the spout in the bathtub was leaking. He took care of both and was gone by 11:30 AM presenting me with a more than reasonable bill. Iā€™m very lucky to have him for my plumbing needs as well as the gentleman I use for my other handyman problems. Theyā€™re both unfailingly pleasant men who come when I need them and bill me at reasonable rates. All of which is good because I am absolutely useless when it comes to this kind of stuff. There is no emergency I canā€™t make worse by trying to fix it. Iā€™ve learned not to try.

Iā€™m hoping thatā€™s it for emergencies for a while.

We had a brief respite from the very hot weather but itā€™s back again with its sticky humidity. Iā€™m not going to let it bother me as today is the first day of my second week of vacation, something Iā€™ve been waiting for patiently since my last week off in July. Maybe not so patiently actually. I donā€™t have a lot of plans but I will keep myself occupied. Iā€™ve baked a birthday cake for a friend and I will take her out for dinner tonight.

Earlier in the day I took a walk up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw Company School Painting in India (ca. 1770ā€“1850). This is a small exhibit of watercolors in a room just off the staircase on the second floor of the Museum in the Arab wing. Itā€™s a room Iā€™ve glanced into numerous times as I turned right to head to the Japanese, Chinese and Indian galleries, always thinking to myself Iā€™ll have to go in and check it out. Iā€™m glad I finally did. The Company in the title is the British East India Company and the paintings were commissioned by the employees of the Company who wanted to have mementos to bring home with them. The watercolors are in lieu of the photographs we now take on our cameras, something unavailable all those years ago.  This is a link to an extraordinarily beautiful painting of a Cotton Tree Flower.  http://tinyurl.com/j2roz3e  It brings to mind an exhibit of many years ago that Iā€™ve spoken of before, Charles Demuthā€™s watercolor depictions of flowers and fruits and vegetables, although the Indian paintings are more functional while Demuthā€™s were aesthetic. This is a link to his Calla Lilies http://www.zazzle.com/calla_lilies_floral_painting_by_charles_demuth_poster-256807416462279701

This is a link to the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History which discusses the exhibit. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cpin/hd_cpin.htm

This is a link to the objects in the exhibit, http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId=56259cf1-581b-46d1-862c-6bbf9ef92327#!?offset=0&perPage=50

Now letā€™s close with something completely different as Monty Python might say. I got a kick out of it and I think everyone else will as well. Itā€™s a three minute video entitled School Lunch.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JNgCM7zp30M?version=3&start=1&end=198&autoplay=1&hl=en_US&rel=0

And now I think itā€™s time for the Flickrs.

Andy G.

å„³č£… Japanese Crossdress Myu

https://www.flickr.com/photos/myu_hukase/8285275506/

MISAKKY's Friend Wedding 001

https://www.flickr.com/photos/misakky/27667906532/

2016-01-06_12.14.33

https://www.flickr.com/photos/callmekate/23588208174/

160503_Jamie-78.05

https://www.flickr.com/photos/134551354@N03/26315428474/

London is not the place for me !

https://www.flickr.com/photos/48976578@N06/26550570686/

IMG_3201

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alicialee287/8459799181/

I love this picture of todayā€¦

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rachel_valentine/28170153996/

Untitled

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dinashu/27522605761/

Yellow Rose

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stefanied/28291124321/

how do we survive school hols!!?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136031688@N06/28135940362/

A bit burlesque

https://www.flickr.com/photos/142955841@N07/28284787431/

[Robyn Jodie]

Especial thanks for the "School Lunch" video.  I thought the kids' reactions were hilarious.  And the singing wasn't bad either<grin>.   

[Angela M...]

Hey Andy G, I too loved the school lunch video. It took me back to my British school days but the lunches back then were not very good and we sure did not get entertained like that. It was usually a teacher making a kid eat everything on his plate under threat of the cane on his backside. I must confess I was that kid sometimes as cold rice pudding was often after the meal and I hated it. If I could not give it away I would try to hide it or scoot out of the lunch room without getting seen, leaving my tray behind. As always I love your trips to the galleries and look forward to more of that when you hit full time retirement. Are you enjoying it part time for now?
I have been checking train times for Toronto so I can go the the gallery there and the museum also as they are near each other. I do think the museum will take most of my day though with its many rooms and exhibits and I have not been there for quite awhile. Parking in Toronto can sometimes cost as much as a train ticket one way and perhaps I can find a hotel special rate and stay over to do everything at the same time. I guess I should also check the gallery and museum websites to plan on what is showing and the times.

[Betty]

A bus from Buffalo to Toronto is around $10-$15, & about over a 2 1/2 to 3 hour ride depending on how many stops it takes along the way. From your area it should be about half that time & price. Accommodations on a Greyhound or Megabus is about the same as a budget airline. Luggage storage, carry on luggage, a coat room. & a comfy seat. Most have toilet facilities about the same as an airline.

There are no meals or food stops on these shorter trips, but they don't mind if you carry on a light lunch, snack, or thermos, as long as it isn't elaborate, you don't make a mess, & don't stink up the bus. An onion, garlic, & Limburger cheese sandwich will probably be removed from you hands, & thrown out the window. Most of the buses are properly air conditioned, & heated. Alcohol consumption is prohibited.

Bring a simple 7", $26-$50 android tablet with headphones loaded up with your favorite tunes or movies from Betty's for the long ride. Most will play movies for 4-6 hours on a single charge. Speakers playing are not allowed on most buses, trains, or airlines. All of Betty's background music & movies can be downloaded to those tablets with plenty of room to spare. The movies look excellent on small screens. All greyhound buses have wifi. High bandwidth sites like Youtube, & Betty's movies might be blocked. Our music at under 5mb per 40 minutes will stream, but it's better to download & save what you want ahead of time.

Hotels in Toronto range from $40-$5,000 per night for a couple. The cheapest ones are smallish with plastic furniture, no TV, charge extra for WiFi, but are quite comfortable.

Your cheapest buses, trains, & rooms will be on weekdays rather than on weekends, holidays, & during special events when they're more heavily booked.

There are some cheap all day & overnight parking spots outside of the downtown area near subway stops. Park there, & take the subway the rest of the way in. It's not too long a drive from your town. Familiarizing yourself with maps before you go, will make it pretty easy there, as the city has changed over the years. The city is designed to navigate rather well without a car... especially for tourists there just to see the coolest stuff.

An enormous amount of the gay population in Buffalo & Niagara Falls visit Toronto & their outlying beaches in the summer a lot but leave their car parked in the same spot the whole time. Toronto has held the title as one of the most gay & lesbian friendly cities in the world for over 45 years. You'll even find many "Guest DJs" from Buffalo working in the gay clubs there. Much more than half those Buffalo gay & lesbian guest DJs there, I personally trained, & broke them into the business.

[andyg0404]

Hi Angela,

A friend commented on how different the lunch being served was from what is served in lunch rooms here in the states, fresh food as opposed to some frozen mess. I wish I was working part time but I'm still putting in the full five days a week, albeit four of them from home. And I monitor my office after hours and on weekends as well. Even though I'm on vacation this week I still go through my office emails every day; if I didn't I would come back to over a thousand. Most of them aren't important but it's hard to see the ones that are when they're buried in an avalanche of them.  I thought the video was charming, the looks on the kids faces priceless.

Andy G.

[Angela M...]

Yes the school lunches never looked that good back in the 50's and one had to sit up straight, eat quickly and all that was put in front of you and then go out to play. I wished that I lived closer to the school so I could go home for lunch but that never was the case. We moved to a new school 6 months before we were to leave for Canada, moving in with family that were coming with us. I hated that school and followed mom home the first day only to be taken back the next day and having the head teacher shout at me for leaving and not telling anyone. Once in Canada everyone took a home made lunch in a paper bag or tin lunch pail. It was quite a change for us.