Jephnol

What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event—
A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward—I do not know
Why yet I live to say "This thing's to do,"
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do 't.
—William S.

Othello. Performed by a full cast of actors on CD with commentary. Fantastic!

I picked it up at the local library. How great is that?

Moussa, a friend from Paris, has been after me to learn the French language. He's a wonderful man and I'd like to give this gift to him--to learn his language--so I'm playing with French. I walk around the house these days speaking to my wife and my dog in a fragmented foreign language. In English I tell my wife I will soon speak French better than her. It's wonderful fun. C'est fantastique!

Over the last few days I've watched two French films without English language captions to supplement my studies. I understood enough to get the gist of the movies, and as my language skills develop I'll revisit the films to see how my impression of them changes. The films were The House Keeper by Claude Berri and God is Great (and I'm Not) by Pascale Bailly. Ils étaient bons. Encore.

C'est bon!

Later I'll post a story about an extraordinary evening my wife and I spent in Paris with Moussa. It was the highlight of my trip to France.

Sometimes I think I blog to make a statement about my intellectual life beginning the day after I dropped out of high-school. I think, well, I could write about that--dropping out--but I don't want to think too much about those days.

I've done pretty well, so far. I like who I am now. That's why I write this blog.

I'm perusing a collection of works by Katsushika Hokusai. (1760-1849)

Hokusai
By Gian Carlo Calza
Phaidon Press Limited

Last night, having defrosted a pound and a half of venison, I threw together a pot of chili. It used all of the venison, one half-pound of beef, kidney beans, tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, onions, and various spices. I gave it kick with cayenne pepper and "Death Rain" chipotle, both of which I used generously. My hunting partner, my wife, and I sat down for dinner and (I'm going to toot my own horn here) I make pretty damned good chili. (Hunting partner D-- and I agreed if deer had to serve but one purpose it would be chili con carne).

On this overcast Saturday afternoon I steamed a pot of soft shell clams for my wife and myself. I rinsed them first and then soaked them in water with salt and cornmeal this morning before I put them in the pot. They were delicious. After we ate I used the leftover cornmeal to make cornbread for supper; it's going to go nicely with the leftover chili, which my wife reports tastes better after a night in the refrigerator. So I'm going to have some of that chili tonight on top of elbow macaroni with fresh-diced tomato, chopped onion, a dollop of sour cream and a generous side of cornbread. I'll wash it all down with the excellent, micro-brewed IPA I have chilling on the front porch.

Life is good.

See the mockup in the previous post.

Original Art:
The drawing of the woman has an interesting history. Originally, I drew the figure from a model in a photography book. At the time I was experimenting in handedness and I worked with my left hand on this one, (I'm right-handed). The medium was Rotoring calligraphy pen and ink. It was a five-minute drill.

I scanned the drawing into Photoshop as line-art, traced it in Illustrator to create a vector graphic and used the live paint tool in Illustrator to add color. I selected the figure in Photoshop and saved the selection as a path in the document.

Fuji Provia 100
Converted to B&W in Photoshop
From our journey to Turkey with T— and F—
Wonderful.

While visiting a Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, I witnessed a culture clash. More perhaps, an act of cultural insensitivity that nearly came to blows. It happened as we were leaving the building. A European man put his shoes back on his feet just outside of the door—Muslims and their guests take their shoes off when entering a Mosque—he then turned to go into the building to look for his friend. A Turkish gentleman was incensed that he had gone into the Mosque with his shoes on and he confronted him. Hard words were exchanged, until his friends calmed him and he wandered off.

Later in a museum of Persian carpets next to the Mosque, I saw him sitting near the door. He greeted me and my companions with enthusiasm as we entered the museum. He shook our hands and smiled generously. I believe I understood his earlier frustration. We were guests in their Mosque, in their city, and in their country; it's only proper that we should respect their culture. The blithe European fellow was obviously trespassing where others had been before and the passions of our Turkish friend were enflamed. It's how I feel when people travel to my America, my New Hampshire, and my town and they don't understand they're our guests.

Many thanks to our friends T— and F—, who are both gracious hosts and charming guests, for introducing us to the wonders of Istanbul.