5 Jun 2009

I had an interesting conversation with my bathroom scale this morning:

Scale: You weigh 266.8 pounds.
Me: How can that be? I've been restricting my calories faithfully for the past week and just yesterday I only weighed 266.
(I step on again)
Scale: You weigh 266.8 pounds.
Me: Okay, I know how this works. For some weird reason I always weigh less after I've showered and shaved. I'll try again.
(I shower and shave, and step back on)
Scale: You weigh 266.4 pounds.
Me: Okay, that makes more sense, but I still don't believe you.
(I step on again)
Scale: All right, already. You weigh 266 pounds. There. Happy? Now please go away.

I am now reading "The Long March" by William Styron - a yard sale acquisition. It's a book about Marines on a 36 mile training hike in the Carolinas. So far it's quite good, but he (or the publisher) makes the grievous mistake of failing to capitalize "Marines." Everyone knows that while there are soldiers, sailors and airmen, Marines are always Marines. The author knows better: He was once in the Marines, and was a Virginian to boot.

Styron's major work was "The Confessions of Nat Turner," which I have also read. An excellent read. The Long March is quite short; for some reason I only have an interest in reading short books these days. I just can't summon up the dedication or executive skills to read anything longer than about 150 pages. Perhaps I was traumatized by David Copperfield last year.

My hometown pal (esai!) Mike has been once again digging up great historical photos of Burbank, California, from whence I hail. I like this one. I wish I knew what kind of car that is... it doesn't appear to be a Ford Model T or A; I looked. He's parked at the base of an easily-identifiable building in early Burbank; easily identified because of that odd, early Russianesque pointed cupola. ("Early Russian?") You can see that later on the cupola was more elegantly supported by angle pieces off the wall in the car photo. By the way, that building still stands, minus the cupola, sad to say. It's now a restaurant/bar. I was in it last September.

My daughter Meredith blew into town yesterday for a prom... yes, even though she's in college she gets invited to high school proms. My son also went to two high school proms as a college student. I think it's kind of weird, but my wife thinks it's unremarkable. My kids are in heavy social demand, undoubtedly because of their outgoing personalities (inherited mainly from their father).

Another thing I think weird but my wife thinks is great is painting the ceiling of my front porch sky blue - which I did the other day. She wants to commission an artist friend of my daughter's to paint some clouds upon it, trompe l'oeil. Now, me, I think my home is a success if somebody comes to the door thinking he made a mistake and is really at some local historical structure, like Mount Vernon or Gunston Hall. If somebody came to my door, looked up and saw clouds painted upon a sky blue ceiling, he'd wonder how many cats the lady inside had.

I mentioned trompe l'oeil; just to make sure I got the spelling right I looked it up on google. I found some entertaining examples of the art:

Building before and building after - Cool! Tres presentable.

Oculus - The artist missed the opportunity to have a cherub hover in midair.

Memorial - The patriotic folks in Mt. Pleasant, Utah, have a go.

I learned that this sort of thing, when painted on a wall, is called a quodlibet. The only other place I had run across that term is with P.D.Q. Bach, when he puts snippets of, say, "She'll be comin' 'round the Mountain," "Yankee Doodle" and the Beatles' "Day Tripper" in a concerto. Ya learn something new every day.

Have a great weekend!

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