Lessons

“One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.” — Will Durant


Yes.

The Brain on Trial

This article by David Eagleman, "The Brain on Trial," is just spot on. So many people do not really have free will, in ways that matter. Not just the extraordinary instances recounted highlighted in the article, which spotlight the problem, but in ordinary, everyday life.

Makes me proud to be a Presbyterian. But kind of sad to be a human being.

And more convinced than ever that we really, really need serious prison reform.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Friday we drove back home. Rain threatened, and for a short while it was heavy.

But not for long. The skies cleared.

The light after the storm was beautiful.

No, rain was not the problem. Traffic, especially around New York City, was the problem. Horrible.

But we finally made it back home, where I found that my tomato plants had doubled in size during our absence.

And that night I was able to once again enjoy my own comfortable bed (the bed at the resort was not nearly so comfortable, my sole complaint). I should write a post some time about how very much I appreciate and enjoy sleep, one of the great pleasures of life.

All in all, a great vacation. It fulfilled two of the main goals of vacation - I had a great time in a different place, and I had a renewed appreciation for home.

Vacation, day five

Day five was really the last day of New Hampshire vacation, since the week included two travel days, there and back. Also, it was rainy. Both these things might have been a little disheartening, except that we were ready to relax and take it easy. No mountains or gorges or caves or ziplines or off-road vehicles. Instead, we watched the mist on the rain-soaked mountains.

And we went out for lunch. This was the second time we had a meal I hadn't cooked. Luckily, I like cooking. And making your own meals is, after all, one of the selling points of a time share - since you have a place with a full kitchen, you can save money by not eating out so often. It's true.

We had lunch at the Woodstock Inn, where some of the decor consists of old typewriters.

I ordered poutine, a dish I had read about but had never yet tried. It's a Canadian dish - French fries, gravy, and cheese.

Tastes great - ideal vacation fare, because it's something you never, ever eat in the course of normal everyday life.

Then I had chowder and Pig's Ear brown ale, the signature beer at the Woodstock Inn, which has a microbrewery on site.

Very satisfying.

Then we went to the movies - we saw Super 8, the new J. J. Abrams / Stephen Spielberg film. And enjoyed it thoroughly. The ending is quite silly, but you can't ask for too much sense from science fiction. What all three of us loved was the evocation of life in the seventies, from a child's point of view. We ourselves were in our twenties during those years, but it was still very nostalgia-inducing. I would love to see stills of the boys' bedrooms, and spend time examining all the stuff the set designers put into those rooms.

Vacation, day four

 

This was the day we ziplined down Wildcat Mountain. They claim we went as fast as 45 miles per hour, but it didn't seem fast until the end - as you approach the bottom of the mountain, you do get the impression that you are going too fast for safety - but it is quite safe. 

The next thing was a gondola ride up the mountain.

It was a beautiful clear bright day.

The gondola station at the top of the mountain looks like a space ship.

But the black flies seemed to like the view, too. Every time I stood still for a moment at the top of the mountain,  I seemed to attract dozens.

So, up and down a mountain twice - very nice.

Vacation, day three

Every day of vacation began with coffee made in our coffee press:

Aah. I was able to get some work done most mornings on an article I am writing on education programs in prisons. It was very nice to begin the day's adventures knowing that I had also accomplished at least an hour or so of writing.

I posted the photo below on Facebook about this time during the vacation, and it garnered lots of comments. Everybody loves typos.

 We took an off road tour with the company Alpine Adventures. This involved driving up a mountain in these vehicles:

The vehicles were really quite amazing, as the "roads" were just ruts and pits, and we often had to drive up and down at odd angles. Our first stop was a trip among the treetops, where we walked along a series of swinging bridges strung between the trees.

After lunch, we drove over to Lost River Gorge for another walk on a series of wooden bridges and steps.

There are several caves along the way that you can explore, particularly if you are limber enough and small enough. We skipped the more difficult ones (for example, one required crawling on your hands and knees through a narrow passage, and we saw no reason at all to try that). But I did check out the Devil's Kitchen cave.

And I walked down into a cave in which, though it is only 10 or so feet below the level of the walkway, the difference in temperature is so great that when I was down there my breath condensed.

Of course, after all that walking down into the gorge, we had to walk back up.

Back to home base for a swim and dinner and a movie.

Vacation, day two

I am going to catch up on these posts, mostly because I want to use this blog as a vacation journal as well as all the other uses. At times like this I am almost resentful of the fact that blogging was not available twenty or thirty or forty years ago, because it would (perhaps) be so much fun to look back on the thoughts and pictures posted then. Of course, nothing was preventing me from simply keeping a journal or scrapbook or photo diary over those decades - but I didn't, although at times I tried. Blogging is the one such activity that I seem to be able to keep up, at least so far.

By the way, that reminds me - one of my resolutions at the beginning of 2011 was to post daily. At first this seemed sort of terrifying, because very often I didn't have much to say. But then it became a painless habit, and then a kind of pleasure. My run of daily posts was broken in May, when Blogger went down for about a day. Then broken again on vacation, when I didn't have Internet access for a few days. So I will try to double-post until I am caught up again, and have at least 365 posts for the year.

But, to get back on topic - on day two of this vacation we took a tram to the top of Cannon Mountain and then walked up the rim trail and climbed to the top of the observatory. It was a beautiful, clear day. In the photo below, you can see Echo Lake to the left.

In the photo below, a pair of fellow walkers enjoy the view from the rim trail.

 Here I am on the observatory platform. I love how the mountain ridges in the distance look like waves of the sea, caught and frozen in time. In a way I suppose that's how they were formed.

Next we visited Flume Gorge, where the park service has very kindly built a series of clever wooden walkways and bridges to make it easy to see this beautiful area up close.

Many of the trees seem to have taken root right on top of the glacial boulders.

Others seem to be standing on tiptoe, perhaps because the soil has eroded from under their roots.

 Loving this stuff. Beautiful New Hampshire!

Vacation, day one

Our vacationing group consists of three people - me, my husband Neil, and his sister Leslie. The first day after our drive from Philadelphia, we took another drive - this time up the beautiful Kancamagus Highway. We stopped at an overlook:

where I was bitten on the eyelid by a black fly, although I didn't realize it for quite a while. Black flies (which are actually gnats) bite you before you even know they are there - and the results appear a few hours later. In my case, later that afternoon Neil told me that I seemed to have a burst blood vessel in an eyelid. I didn't connect it to the flies at the overlook until the next day, when it became obvious that my eyelid was swollen, reddish purple, and droopy. It has been that way for the last five days, but at least it doesn't hurt or itch. In fact, I forgot all about it except whenever I happened to look in a mirror.

We continued on to North Conway, where we had lunch. I had a delicious goat cheese, spinach, and roasted red pepper omelette.

This is a ski area, and even in June evidence of skiing is everywhere, such as the benches on the sidewalks:

And in the local McDonald's, where seating has been constructed from repurposed ski lift gondolas:

 

(McDonald's is our go-to restaurant for bathroom stops, and I'm very grateful to them for that.)

We stopped at a bookstore that features employee recommendations, which I like to read:

 

Our visit happens to coincide with a biker rally, so there are motorcycles and motorcyclists everywhere, in every town. Bikers these days are mostly boomers, it seems - biking seems to be big with folks in their fifties and sixties. On the way back across the Kancamagus, we have to wait on a turn for about half an hour while ambulances and other vehicles clear away the results of an accident involving four bikers. I hope no one was badly hurt.

We shop for the week's groceries, and go back to the resort for dinner and a movie. And that is day one - apart from the nuisance of the black flies, a good one!

Deer Park Resort

I now have a card reader, and therefore pictures - yay!

We are staying at Deer Park Resort in Lincoln, New Hampshire. The photo to the left is the clubhouse, not the buildings people actually stay in, but it looks so pretty reflected in the little lake. I took this on a morning walk around the lake.

The places we stay in - apartments? condos? residences? units? - I'm not sure what to call them, but they are quite nice. Ours has three bedrooms, two baths, and a full kitchen. (We are not even using one whole bedroom - but originally this trip was planned with more people in mind.) This place has a mixture of full-time residents, vacation homes for people who come often enough, and have enough money, to afford a second home, and rental units for people like us. It's nice to see little bus shelters here and there for the kids who live here permanently to use during the school year. Very different feeling than being in a motel or hotel.

The units are built along the banks of a brook - a babbling brook. Really. If we have our bedroom windows open at night, we can hear the thing babbling away. Babbling is not a sound I normally like, but I do like it when it's being done by water, in New Hampshire.

The view from the back porch is to the right. Ahhh.

Beautiful New Hampshire

We drove up to Lincoln, New Hampshire on Friday. The White Mountains are gorgeous. And I forgot to bring the connector thingy that makes it possible to transfer photos from my camera to my computer, so it looks as though there won't be any pictures to post till we get home again. Drat.

Finally, today, figured out how to access a wireless network from our apartment here. We are not the most techy of folks, obviously.

Took a tram up Cannon Mountain yesterday, and then walked up to the observation tower. Wonderful views. Hiked through Flume Gorge today. Again, stunning beauty. But you will just have to take my word for it for now - not that my puny photos could really capture the place, anyway. But they would help.

In the meantime, live free or die!

Dusk skywatching

Sitting outside in the cool air tonight, watching the clouds at dusk, and the bats, like tiny aerial Roombas sweeping the sky clean of insects.

Tomorrow - the White Mountains of New Hampshire!

Sally Rand

You never know what you'll find among old family mementoes. For instance, who expects to find an autographed photo of Sally Rand, the girl who made the ostrich feather fan dance and balloon bubble dance famous in the thirties? It seems so innocent now, this retro-porn. (The nudity was mostly an illusion.) In this photo, which she signed "To Micky - Your fan, Sally Rand," she seems pretty well covered up to me. (Micky is my husband's father.)

The back of the photo is also interesting:

This appearance at the Key Klub must have been during the 1950s or 60s - and Miss Rand was born in 1904! However, I learned from Wikipedia that she continued to appear on stage into the 1970s, and a search for Key Klub Waukegan takes me to the Sally Rand page at the streetswing dance history archives.

The Student Theme

The adjectives all ganged up on the nouns,
insistent, loud, demanding, inexact,
their Latinate constructions flashing. The pronouns
lost their referents: They were dangling, lacked
the stamina to follow the prepositions' lead
in, on, into, to, toward, for, or from.
They were beset by passive voices and dead
metaphors, conjunctions shouting But! or And!

The active verbs were all routinely modified
by adverbs, that endlessly and colorlessly ran
into trouble with the participles sitting
on the margins knitting their brows like gerunds
(dangling was their problem, too). The author
was nowhere to be seen; was off somewhere.

Ronald Wallace

(Note: interesting to me partly because I might begin teaching English comp again, part time. But mostly because it's a very clever, astute poem.)

You call that a song?

Woke early this morning to a strong smell of skunk and birds screeching like crazy. On the other hand, it was nice and cool.

Bird song has never seemed especially lovely to me.  I don't seem to have whatever the necessary gift is for appreciating it. Always sounds to me, as others have pointed out, like what it is - an animal screaming COME HERE AND MATE WITH ME. NOW.

Except when it means I'M GOING TO PECK YOUR EYES OUT IF YOU ENTER MY TERRITORY.

The only time I ever really liked bird sounds was when we lived in rural New Jersey and had an owl living outside our bedroom window. The nocturnal hooing was rather nice.

I do like birds - they look great. But apparently I've never heard this bird "song" that other people like so much.

The Warden

I have just finished The Warden, Trollope's fourth novel and the next on my journey through all the works of Trollope in order.

This is my third or fourth reading of the novel, and I have also watched the excellent dramatization of the book in the BBC's 1982 series, The Barchester Chronicles.

This time I was struck by how unusual the plot is. The Warden is a novel in which almost nothing happens. In fact, a summary of the plot would probably make someone who had never read the book wonder why anyone would read it:

Rev. Septimus Harding lives at Hiram's Hospital, a charity home for twelve elderly men, with his daughter, Eleanor. His daughter's suitor, John Bold, becomes convinced that the charity is being mismanaged, and demands a public accounting.  Eleven of the twelve old pensioners are convinced that if they sue the hospital they will be awarded much more of the annual proceeds of the charity. A  public legal battle ensues.

Rev. Harding (the warden of the book's title) is distressed by the publicity and the imputation of wrongdoing. As he considers the matter, though, he becomes convinced that he is actually in the wrong to take such a large income from the charity. Even though Eleanor persuades John Bold to drop the lawsuit, Rev. Harding resigns as a matter of conscience, though this means that his income is greatly reduced. The upshot for the twelve old men is that their income is reduced also (Rev. Harding had subsidized it out of his own pocket), no new warden is appointed to take his place, and the charity falls into comparative ruin.

Imagine pitching this plot to an editor or producer: "Here's my idea - a lawsuit is threatened, and then dropped!"

And what a change from Trollope's first three novels, filled with swashbuckling action and melodrama.

Yet if he had written only the first three, we would not know his name. If he had written only The Warden he would probably be at least a footnote in Victorian studies. In this novel, the first in the great Barsetshire series, Trollope begins to be at home with his particular genius. 

I wondered what Trollope himself had said about the novel, whether he had realized at the time what a wonderful step forward this was in his writing. I had read The Warden on my Kindle, and I was able to order and download his Autobiography almost the second I had the thought, and for only 99 cents! (This technology still amazes me mightily, and I like to think that Trollope would be equally amazed and gratified if he could know of the ways in which his words are being delivered to new readers so long after their initial publication.)

In his autobiography, Trollope tells us that The Warden was the first of his novels to receive favorable critical attention, and the first one from which he made any kind of money (he is always very honest and unembarrassed about discussing the financial aspects of the production of novels). He says that the characters are good (an understatement), and that the plot is weak (not true, in my opinion).

He notes that the idea for the novel had originated in his being struck by "two opposite evils" - that charitable funds had become income for "idle Church dignitaries" rather than being used to assist the poor, and that the recipients of these incomes were subjected to "undeserved severity." As Trollope notes, "When a man is appointed to a place, it is natural that he should accept the income allotted to that place without much inquiry. It is seldom that he will be the first to find out that his services are overpaid."

Very astute observations. But Trollope goes on to say,  "But I was altogether wrong in supposing that the two things could be combined. Any writer in advocating a cause must do so after the fashion of an advocate . . . or his writing will be ineffective. He should take up one side and cling to that, and then he may be powerful."

On the contrary - the peculiar strength of The Warden comes from the matching up of these two opposing forces. Mr Harding's position is wrong - and at the same time, he is blameless and very lovable. It's a wonderful combination.

Finally, I found this observation about Trollope, which I just want to include here as it beautifully summarizes the heartbreaking story that was the man's childhood and youth, from PD James' tribute to Trollope, "The Finest Natural Psychologist":

"If it is true, as one psychiatrist has told us, that ideally a creative writer should have as much trauma in childhood that he can take without breaking, then Anthony Trollope's early life was an ideal preparation for the profession of letters. He was a child in desperate need of love and encouragement who received very little of either. His proud and sensitive spirit suffered the humiliations and agonies of genteel poverty. He was bullied, beaten and despised at school and undervalued by his family."

Well, I hope the psychiatrist was wrong. But his early life really was terrible - more so than Dickens', to my mind, although Dickens' early traumas are much more famous. Of course, there is not point in arguing that one child suffered more than another, when all suffering is bad.

Old interiors

More mysterious old photos. I think these may be pictures of a school in Illinois, but I don't know which one - in Libertyville, perhaps?

The Genie of Childhood

The first messenger suggested
"Let childhood be good - so good, in fact,
that they sorrow ever after, sighing for
the strong embrace, the safe room, the approving look.
Let its absence flavor the rest of life with gall.
That is my plan."

The second messenger suggested
"Let childhood be bad - so bad, in fact,
that they sorrow ever after, seeking to escape
the strong grip, the locked door, the contemptuous glance.
Let its existence favor the rest of life with gall.
That is my plan."

And the Genie of Childhood
smiled, looking from one to the other,
as tears began to roll down
his plump pink cheeks; as he laughed,
"So be it. So be it."

John and Fish

John and Fish are a brother/sister photography team who specialize in ornithology.

Their fantastic photos are a big hit on Flickr.

Rightly so.

Ab Ovo

Ultimately, there should be a language
in which the word "egg" is reduced to O
entirely. The Italian comes closest,
naturally, with its uova. That's why Alighieri thought
it the healthiest food, sharing the predilection
with sopranos and tneors, whose pear-like torsos
in the final analysis embody "opera."
The same pertains to the truly Romantic, that is,
German poets, with practically every line
starting the way they'd begin a breakfast,
or to the equally cocky mathematicians
brooding over their regualrly laid infinity,
whose immaculate zeros won't ever hatch.

Joseph Brodsky

Philadelphia bike messenger culture

Monday, just as I was leaving work, a rough cut DVD of a video we are revising was dropped off for my review, by a bike messenger. (That sounds more interesting than it is; if you want to see the kind of videos I work on, go here and click on the link “Onsite orientation for Step 2 CS (Video).” It’s an enthralling 20 minutes or so, and you can even see my handwriting in some of the screen shots!

However, what I want to focus on now is the bike messenger.

I had never heard of bike messengers until about twelve years ago, when I began working in medical publishing in Philadelphia. It turns out the quickest way to get an object delivered in the city is via bicycle. These messengers are unbelievably fast. In fact, when I worked at Lippincott, we were warned to have the manuscript or whatever we were sending packaged, addressed, and ready to go before we placed the call to a bike messenger company for pick-up, because the messenger was almost always waiting in the lobby before we were able to get downstairs via elevator to meet them. They are that fast.

(In case you are wondering what kind of object needed to be delivered physically in this age of electronic publishing, usually it was handwritten author corrections or medical art; most of that is done electronically, but there were exceptions. The most exciting instance was when a doctor, in the midst of an operation, wanted to consult an article that was still in the proof stage, about some unusual situation. He needed the proofs and photos delivered immediately to the operating room.)

I learned that there is a bike messenger culture. Most of the messengers are very skinny young men with tattoos and piercings (or perhaps that is the look that sticks in my memory). There are bike messenger bars where they hang out after work. They take a lot of pride in their speed, and because of that are often criticized for creating dangerous traffic situations. At least two pedestrians, I believe, have died after being struck by a bike messenger – but the messengers themselves are also in some danger, as are all city cyclists.

The bike messenger population has declined quite a bit in recent years, but it still seems to be a satisfying way of life for some folks. I think there must be some kind of adrenaline addiction involved. Here’s an excerpt from a 2009 article in Philadelphia Weekly:

The small bicycle-courier community in Philadelphia is overwhelmingly male and young, nearly everybody a dropout from school, career or some other mainstream obligation—the kind of people who enjoy spending a miserably wet fall day crisscrossing the city on bike. And couriers say Philly—with its relatively cheap rents—is one of the last, best places to earn a living.

Brito, one of the leaders of the Philadelphia Bicycle Messenger Association, came to town from New York, attended grad school and taught eighth grade in North Philly for a short spell.

“I hated it,” he says. “The only thing I enjoyed was riding for a living. So now I’m the most overeducated messenger in the city. Even though things are slow now and the economy sucks, I probably make as much as if I were teaching. I sleep better.”

The Monster Study

 Heartbreaking story, found here.  Interesting especially after viewing The King's Speech.

In 1939, University of Iowa graduate student Mary Tudor began an experiment with local orphans, warning them that they were showing signs of stuttering and lecturing them whenever they repeated a word. The children became acutely self-conscious, and many began to stutter, fulfilling the theory that "the affliction is caused by the diagnosis."

Sixty years later, when Tudor was 84, she received a letter from one of the orphans. It was addressed to "Mary Tudor Jacobs The Monster."

"You destroyed my life," it ran. "I could have been a scientist, archaeologist or even president. Instead I became a pitiful stutterer. The kids made fun of me, my grades fell off, I felt stupid. Clear into my adulthood, I still want to avoid people to this day."

"I didn't like what I was doing to those children," Tudor told the San Jose Mercury News in 2001. "It was a hard, terrible thing. Today, I probably would have challenged it. Back then you did what you were told. It was an assignment. And I did it."

One of the worst parts is that one of the orphans she turned into a lifelong stutterer was a girl who was very excited to be chosen for the study, because she thought Tudor had come to adopt her.

The Quiet

Best of any song
is bird song
in the quiet, but first
you must have the quiet.

Wendell Berry
Sabbath Poems, 1997, I

Black Prince

That's the name of the heirloom tomato Tim and I planted this afternoon. We put eight plants into eight pots - most of them ordinary red tomatoes, but this one is supposed to bear dark purple fruit. It's a Russian variant.

I would like to be able to say that I took a photo of our Black Prince at night because it seemed appropriately mysterious, to go with the name - but actually, I just waited too long before deciding what to post today, and had to take the photo in the dark.

Very hopeful that we will get at least some delicious tomatoes this year.

Falling deeper into the hands of the living God

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
Collingswood, NJ
November 25, 2007

I checked their website and decided to attend the 10:00 Family Mass and Sermon; since I had already visited several Episcopalian churches (see here and here and here and here), I didn’t do any special reading or preparation ahead of time.

This doesn’t start well. Once again I march up to what looks for all the world like the front door of a church, only to find that it is locked. This has happened more than once already during my year of visiting churches, and I am only about halfway through the year! Luckily, some older women are getting out of their car at about the same time and they point me in the right direction, around the corner. Apparently the big red doors that face the street were the front doors of this church at one time, but since then renovations have resulted in another entrance, off to the side. One woman tells me that she made the same mistake the first time she came to this church, so apparently this has been going on for years.

Inside, I find that this is another one of those churches with an upstairs sanctuary. As usual, at least one older parishioner is moving up the steps with some difficulty. And once again I marvel at the way people did not seem to be concerned with mobility issues when designing buildings only a few decades ago. What were they thinking? Was everyone spry back then?

Upstairs I am greeted pleasantly, handed a program, and asked to sign the guest book, located on a stand in the rear of the church.

The church has lovely stained glass windows, one for each of the twelve apostles. It seems a bit of a mixture of old and newish – like an older church that was remodeled in the fifties. The pews have bright red cushions, and the altar cloths are red and white. There is a rather large thing that seems to be a heating vent directly above the red and gold cross centered on the sanctuary wall, which seems a little unfortunate – but it’s hard to combine modern convenience with older architecture.

As the service begins, a group of people including four children wearing black robes covered with white smocks proceed to the rear of the sanctuary, some carrying candles and crosses, and when the organist begins the prelude they process back up to the front again.
The rector is wearing a gorgeous blue and white robe over his gown. The first hymn is “Bring Forth the Royal Diadem, and Crown Him Lord of All.” This is my first surprise – this group can really sing! Surely there are no more than 70 people in a sanctuary that could seat at least 350, but their voices are not drowned in all that empty space. Impressive.

All the readings are printed in a bulletin insert, and very easy to follow. The second hymn is listed as the Gradual Hymn; I looked up the terminology later and discovered that gradual hymns were sung from a raised step (gradus) immediately before the reading of the Gospel. The Gradual Hymn today is “O Worship the King, All Glorious Above,” and once more the congregation hits a home run with their singing. I am suddenly feeling very enthusiastic about the music here.

During the last verse, the rector walks up into the pulpit. Hey – at some point he must have removed that blue and white robe, but I didn’t notice him doing it. He has a good, clear voice, which is handy because I can also hear the kids in Sunday School somewhere else in the building.

The sermon is about the words of one dying man to another – the pastor draws our attention to the fact that only one man, a condemned thief, expressed faith in Christ’s kingdom at the cross. This may be because the near approach of death had wonderfully concentrated his mind – as he experienced dying, he was “falling deeper into the hands of the living God.”

The sermon is seven minutes long, and I like it quite a bit.
During the prayers after the sermon I am struck again by the way Episcopalians and Catholics use first names when praying, which sounds odd to me. We pray for “George, our President, Richard, our Vice President, and Jon, our governor.” It seems like such a contrast with the formality of other aspects of the service. Plus, Episcopalians and Catholics tend to use fancy titles like “Your Holiness” or “Your Eminence” when addressing church officials in person, but assume this chummy first-name style during prayers. (Also, it took me a half-second to realize who he meant when he prayed for Richard, our Vice President. Richard? Oh yeah – Dick Cheney.)

Then comes the Peace, and I shake hands with a few people. Next announcements, and I learn that there will be a brunch after the service. Then the Offertory Hymn, and Holy Communion. The method is intinction, and now comes another first for me – the server puts the wafer directly on my tongue.

The Communion hymn is another favorite – Crown Him with Many Crowns – although I’ve always found one of the phrases a touch ominous: Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
As I gather my things, someone approaches and hands me a blue tote bag imprinted with the church’s name, address, phone number, and website address. It contains several brochures with information about this church and about the Episcopal Church, including a helpful brochure titled “Church Customs Every Episcopalian Ought to Know.”. This brochure begins, “Entering an Episcopal Church for the first time can be daunting.”
I follow everyone downstairs for the brunch. On the way, I fall in with a woman who has evidently looked me up in the guest book I signed earlier, because she tells me that she will soon move into the apartment building in which I live. We chat about apartments on our way downstairs, and about the difficult housing market (she can’t move until she sells her house). I notice drawings of what seem to be plans for a church addition or renovation pinned to the walls, and ask about them, and she tells me that plans are on hold at present.

Light refreshments have been set up on a table in the basement, and people are sitting at tables arranged a big U-shape. I have some nuts and fruit and stand to one side, trying to look pleasant and approachable. Someone comes up and says hello, and I suddenly realize that I saw her in a local children’s play recently – she was the Blue Fairy! It was a good production, and I tell her so.

I stand around longer, but no one else talks to me. Well, I know it’s hard to talk to strangers. Seems like a nice group; good sermon; great singing.

I’m getting somewhat bored with visiting churches, though. And I wonder how these big old buildings are going to be adequately supported by these smaller modern congregations. It's a problem everywhere.

Daylily by night

I looked up tiger lilies (a species of day lily). Perhaps that is not what these are, because the experts say that the blossom of a day lily lasts only one day, opening in the morning and withering by night - to be replaced by a new blossom the next day. Or perhaps I'm just not very perceptive, because I have not noticed these blossoms having such a brief lifespan.

We have pink and orange.

And they seem to be flourishing in this lovely, cool night air. The temperature is predicted to go to 52 degrees tonight - wonderful sleeping weather!

My guess is that she needed them

Jane Farrell, 12, convicted of stealing 2 boots, sentenced to do 10 hard days labour.

From Images of Newcastle Prison, 1871-1873, at Retronaut.