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Showing posts from November, 2013

Selfie: A New Word and Experience

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My only selfie so far.  Me and Jennifer in Alaska in June 2008.   I don't own a smart phone. I have a 12-year old flip phone that does nothing except make phone calls. Imagine a cell phone that is just a phone. Absurd, right? So, I have not taken many selfies, which are largely a phenomenon of phones that take photos. I remember taking a selfie of Jennifer and myself in Alaska just before we had our grizzly bear encounter (see pic above). I shot it from a low angle with the camera out at arm's length and waist level. Above us in the background there was a rock cropping and a cloud passing in an otherwise mostly sunny summer sky. Now selfie has become an official word . It is new karma generated by iPhones and similar devices . It has become so commonplace that a word reflecting the behavior has entered the evolution of the English language, so the behavior, in turn, is now officially a force in the world. Selfie beat out another new action word considera

Cassini Amazes

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The Day The Earth Smiled photography as fully assembled.  This is not a photo-shopped image.  All the colors are natural and reveal the beauty of our neighbor in the Solar System.  Taken July 19, 2013 and released to the public earlier this week.  The original image is much larger than this reduction.   My  continuing interest in the Cassini spacecraft mission got a shot in the arm earlier this week.  Back in the summer Cassini performed a maneuver to photograph the far side of Saturn looking back toward Earth.  Initially, the resulting photos were only fragments released to the public.  Now, after months additional work, the wide natural-color vista of Saturn was released for the first time.  The results are stunning. Cassini took a series of 141 images from a distance of about 750,000 miles from Saturn (three times the distance of the Earth from the Moon).  The span of view is some 404,000 miles across looking back into infinite space.  The Earth was about 900,000,000 m

Lady Chatterley's Lover: An Intensely Sexy Read

Warning: The following post contains adult content .  You can not really discuss this novel without talking dirty. There are some smutty adult words here, all quoted from the novel reviewed. Read them responsibly. Long-time readers know that I try to maintain a certain health regime and lifestyle. Part of that is regular sex. There are numerous studies that indicate the health benefits of sex , the benefits to relationships, and to piece of mind. No need to revisit all that here other than to say that after practicing this for many years, I have discovered that in my mid-50's I am a more erotic person than I was as a college student or when I first married. The erotic is an accentuated part of my life. It inspires, motivates, entertains, and brings fulfillment. It can be a strong thread tying otherwise loose ends of life together in a holistic fashion. For years I have read erotic novels and watched erotic films (both pornographic and artsy). As you know I also enjoy read

Other Recent Classical Music

2013 was my year to fine-tune my contemporary classical music collection. I bought probably around three dozen CDs or CD-sets during the course of the year. As I see it, I have caught up to the point where I am only buying new releases by contemporary composers that I admire and want to follow. This post is a brief overview of much of that CD collecting. Kaija Saariaho is a rare female composer in my collection. In general, classical composition is a white male world. Although there are many woman composers through the centuries ( Clara Schumann being one of the most noteworthy), there is perhaps no more one-sided art form that is so specifically (but non-intentionally) racist and sexist. White men are the greatest classical composers in history. That is just a simple fact. Given all that, I rate the music of Saariaho highly and her orchestral works are rewarding. In this century, Saariaho's compositional style has evolved into a specific sound. I would call it haunti