Afternoon rain

I was on the sofa with my back to the three large windows in the living room finishing a copy of Time

when I noticed the pages were getting a little darker. I am acutely sensitive to this since cataract surgery on both eyes during the last month. I finished reading the interview with the female CEO of GM on the last page, closed the magazine, and initialed the front cover as my sign I have finished it. This was a signal to my late wife she could throw the magazine in the recyclable box when she straightened up the coffee table in front of the three-seat leather sofa. My wife died last August but old habits die hard, 

I took up the Book Review section from Sunday’s Times (June 12, 2016) and that was when I heard the first patter of rain. I got up, turned around and looked out the window. A hatless man, dressed in shorts and sport shirt, hurried by on the walking path parallel to the golf course dragging his golf bag on a two wheel cart behind him. I walked to a glass door in the dining room but the rain was hitting it directly and it obscured the view. 

I went from the back of the house to the front. Rain was hitting the road and bouncing into the air. It was soaking the front lawn throughly. For several days I’ve been fighting the lawn sprinkler control box to regulate watering the lawns in front and back. The box was, alas, beyond me. I enlisted the aid of a neighbor and after a couple of trial and error efforts she succeeded. The water now comes on in the morning around 5:30, first in the front and then in the back yard. The lawns will be watered tomorrow by the sprinklers despite today’s rain. This might be wasteful but I will not alter the operation of the control box. Off in the distance I hear thunder rumbling. It is just barely raining at present at my house and the sky is clearing and it is becoming brighter. Perhaps this was all just a late afternoon summer shower we can expect in South Carolina along the coast.  I can see drops hitting small puddles on the street. It is getting brighter, the sky is clearing. The thunder is further and further away. My neighbor and her young daughter are walking their dogs in front of the house.

Back to the Book Review section of Sunday’s Times. 

Click here for complete blog.

Comment to: arch@archibald99.com

A water mistress who masters the pool

In addition to a daily newspaper I subscribe to fifteen publications, some weekly, semi-monthly and monthly, but Vogue is not one of them.

I picked up a copy of the April issue, however,  because a good friend's granddaughter is the subject of a feature story - Free Style - (page 250) dealing with her amazing accomplishments as a young swimmer. 

It is safe to say the six-feet tall Kathy Ledecky of Bethesda, Maryland, could out swim Tarzan, Jane, Boy and Cheetah all at once. Heck, she has already bested every one else. 

At the age of 15, this phenomenon made her debut at the London Olympics four years ago, winning a gold, and has since won golds in the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 meter freestyle races at the FINA World Championships in Russia last August. 

The swimming world is wondering what Miss Ledecky, now 19-years of age, will do to top all this at the Olympics in Brazil this summer. She trains up to 30 hours a week, and has broken her own 800 meter freestyle world record four times since 2013. 

The Vogue feature deals with the maturity and pose of this 19-year old who has deferred her scholarship to Stanford for a year to train for the Olympics.  Last fall she took a couple of classes at Georgetown: Chinese history and politics, to keep herself sharp.

Even if I was not acquainted with her grandmother, the Vogue (April 2016) essay, Free Style, would be enlightening and entertaining reading for the simple pleasure of knowing about this "once-in-a-lifetime" American swimming phenom. 

Click for complete blog. 

Click to send comments here.

Moving on...new friends and new things

Except for one posting,  I have neglected my blog since my wife died on August 9. I know, however, Joyce would not want me to sit home and become a couch potato. I have tried to go out with friends and meet new friends and experience new things, 

I recently had a lobster dinner for $12.95 on lobster night at Reilley's Northend Pub on Hilton Head Island. This is a regular Monday feature and the place was packed. We got plastic bibs and a shell cracker with each dinner as well as corn on the cob and boiled potatoes. The service was excellent.

Without knowing it, I must have been in some kind of shell for a long time because I never heard of an Arnold Palmer until lunch this week.  For those who shared life-in-the-shell this is a combination of tea and lemonade. The tea can be sweet (as I prefer) or unsweetened. (And after living in the South since 1959, I subscribe to the thought that you cannot sweeten tea after it is served. Sugar has to be the first thing in the pitcher when making sweet tea and the boiling tea poured over it with more water and ice to finish it off.)

I went to see The Intern, a feel good movie with Robert deNiro. He has apparently conceded to his age and appears in more comedies than action movies, e.g. Ronin. This weekend I will travel to Atlanta to attend a three day reunion of the Carolinas and Georgia chapter of CIRA, (Central Intelligence Retirees Association.) They extended honorary membership to me last year and Joyce and I went to Beaufort, N.C., for the 2014 reunion.  We had a great time, met some old friends again and made some new ones. I expect to do the same this year. I have signed up for tours of Coca Cola, Center for Civil and Human Rights, CNN VIP tour and Georgia Aquarium.  All ought to be highly interesting.

Visits with my children, some here and some in Charleston have also been good times. My daughter, Martha, remembered how much I enjoyed a humungous slice of coconut cake in a Charleston restaurant and she shipped me a similar piece in an iced container for my birthday to begin the month of October. The moment I had the container opened my brain sent an Eat Now message to my body.  I ate half on arrival and I ate the rest the next day. One word to describe, or make it two; Absolutely delicious.

For complete blog click here.

Send comments to: arch@archibald99.com

Five bars of strength

Often it is the easiest solution which is the best and the simplest. Today's case in point: For several evenings while trying to watch a Netflix streaming (instant download) film I experienced a stop and go action. This was a recent new phenomenon and frustrating. While watching the film I would only see a portion of the scene and hear the dialogue before the film would have to reload. I incorrectly assumed it was a poor Internet connection, or my Apple internet router was too far away from the living room smart TV. The router is in one room about 50-60 from the TV in the living room. When I checked the strength I had only two of five bars showing signal power. Instinct said to get a

A router signal extender (an example)

router signal extender. I spent about an hour researching an extender for my Apple router. A Google search turned up several people with a similar problem and those who reported solving the issue did so with extenders. Rather than rush off and spend $70  $80, I decided to try using a Chromecast system (a thumb-sized media streaming device that plugs into the HDMI port on your TV) given to me last Christmas by one of my sons. This has an extender built in. While the installation was in progress, I re-read the small manual which came with my Apple router. The manual addressed interference and what could cause it. One of these was metal objects near the router. Between my router and my television set I had a couple of laptop computers and some other small metal objects very close to the router. When I removed these, the five bars of signal strength on my TV Internet connection instantly improved from two bars to five. I worked this for about half an hour and determined I had continuous reception from Netflix without stop and go aggravation. One of the films I had tried to watch last evening came through - as they say - loud and clear.

Complete blog here.

E-mail comment here.

Looking for love

Moving up the Lane

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk looking out the window for the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes team to come down the Lane and give me a check for a million dollars, or $5,000 a week for life, or whatever they have promised me and a few million other gullible fools who open their e-mails. 
Suddenly, a Great Egret was looking in my front window and walking around my yard. I ran to grab my camera and call my wife to see this large, white eloquent bird with a yellow beak before he disappeared. I went into the yard and took several pictures of this beautiful bird in ours and two other adjoining front yards. It was exciting to watch this bird, especially when he stopped to look with love in his eyes at a metal replica of his species standing in the adjoining neighbor’s garden. When he decided there was no future for him with the replica he moved on. 
In a second yard a couple of small grandchildren came out of the house and startled the Great Egret. He took flight across the street and a few seconds later, still airborne about six feet off the ground, he headed for a golf course that wraps around our house.

(Visit complete blog here.)

                                                                  (E-mail comments to: arch@archibald99.com.)

Coligny Beach

Snapshots from a visit to Coligny Beach, a popular Hilton Head Island destination:

(Click on pictures to increase size.

At public entrance.

On duty.

Enjoying each other and the water.

Soaking up some rays.

Good crowd on a Tuesday morning.

 A lot of sunscreen required here.

Some sweet music

We came away from the Farmers' Market at Shelter Cove on Hilton Head Island last night (Tuesday, May 20, 2014) having experienced a couple of treats and a disappointment that it was not really a "farmers' market." Only one stand offered fresh vegetables and these came from the market in Columbia more than a 100 miles away. I had a pulled pork sandwich - rate it as good. Now for  the treats. My dessert was frozen key lime pie covered in chocolate on a stick. Outstanding.
While we - me and Joyce - were walking around and eating we listened to L.J. Bush (info@bushwackdLIVE.com) who played music we and others enjoyed. His melodies were soft and his words we understood. Truly a refreshing sound from that frequently heard out in outdoor venues.

Do we need a life?

I don’t know what this says about us (the wife and I) but last night we watched the concluding episode, number 102 of “Weeds,” the Showtime serial about an urban wife and mother, Nancy Botwin, who, when her husband dies prematurely, turns to selling marijuana to maintain the family’s comfortable lifestyle. The show ran eight seasons, 13 shows per season, for approximately 50 hours of TV. We watched it all commercial free from Netflix via Roku and we did all this watching over five or six weeks, usually four episodes a night. The same time it would take to watch a two hour movie.

   The series created by Los Angeles born Jenji Kohan was never boring. A great cast of captivating regular characters supplemented periodically with fresh faces introduced and hanging around for a few episodes all contributed humor and suspense. Many of the half-hour situations were seriously over the top but this made the series as addictive as its title.  One thing we especially enjoyed was watching the youthful actors playing the Botwin children age as the show went on over eight years. The basic cast was kept together throughout the run of the show.

   Some people, who have seen this series, or parts of it, may consider it nothing more than trashy fantasy and I don’t disagree with that assessment, but for adult laughs it is hard to beat.

   Only things is it worries me that we watched it all. We could be brain-dead. AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaH.

(Complete blog here.)

(Opt out, send e-mail: arch@archibald99.com)

Lookout Mountain - A Return Visit

I hardly remember my first visit to Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tenn., some forty or fifty years ago, but I was amazed by what I saw there last week.  The area has developed a hundred fold, interstate highways take you practically there. Organized tours are available or you can get around on your own, but the area is flat-out big business seven days a week. The place was overrun with families on the summer holiday and my wife and I jumped in to enjoy it right along with them.

En route, we stopped in Aiken, SC, for a night and visited the historical and railroad museums in that city.  The historical museum is located in an old home built in the early 1900s by Yankees with railroad, oil and banking money who loved to winter in Aiken. They lived a good life.

At Lookout Mountain visitors have the opportunity to see Ruby Falls by descending on an elevator into a cave and walking about a mile underground to the falls. This was more of a challenge than we wanted so we bought a video to savor the experience and drove on to one of the mountain lookouts.

It is possible to reach this point by riding an incline car but we elected to take the drive around winding roads and experience more than could be seen on a straight ride up the mountain inside a closed cable car. We were not disappointed. The drive is suspenseful and challenging, especially when you come up behind bikers in your lane and meet an on-coming vehicle in the opposite lane.

When we came off the mountain we visited the Tennessee Aquarium in nearby Chattanooga and it was well worth the time. Again, the locale was crowded with families, not only out-of-area tourists but locals taking advantage of the weekend. One of the more interesting features was the butterfly house with hundreds of beautiful butterflies. Their colors were gorgeous.  It is not easy to capture a picture of a butterfly

 as adults and children keep passing through and disturbing them, to say nothing about a couple of beautiful macaws, who loudly entertained sightseers, young and old. 

It is a great part of the United States to visit - and re-visit if you haven't been there since your own children grew up and moved out on their own. 

(Click to visit complete blog.)

(To opt out e-mail: arch@archibald99.com)

After the Boston Marathon Bombing

A few personal thoughts as the Boston Marathon bombing enters the wrap-up phase.
One of the ministers at the inter-faith service said she did not have an answer for why a loving God allowed such tragedy. I don't either and I doubt that anyone does. We will, however, go on from here as we always do. Those dead will be grieved for, those injured will be cared for and soon our attention will be focused on something else. It is the way of life. Life is for the living ad we ought to treasure every moment. We can expect that loving God to be with us along the way. And so we pray.

The Myth of the Gunfighter

Remember when you sat in the movie theatre on a Saturday afternoon and watched two men walk slowly down the dusty street toward each other. Merchants shuttered doors. Women whisked children off the street. The bad guy was unshaven, snarling and he wore a black hat. The good guy was tall, handsome and looked magnificent in his white Stetson. The music came up in the background and you stopped putting popcorn in your mouth as the bad man's hand moved toward the pistol on his hip.

Great stuff from Hollywood (and pulp novels), but far from factual, Joseph G. Rosa tells us. Gunfighters of the old West were more imagination than fact. Of course, the code of the entertainment world is, "When the legend is greater than reality," print the legend.
  
Joseph G. Rosa is a historian of the Wild West, author, and the chief biographer of Wild Bill Hickok as well as several other figures of this period.

Mr. Rosa makes his case for setting the record straight in his new book:

Age of the Gunfighter: Men and Weapons on the Frontier, 1840-1900. by Joseph G. Rosa. University of Oklahoma Press. Paperback

 

No applause at horse shows

Ever wonder why there is little to no applause during horse shows, and what there is is often subdued? 
Several years ago I went to a horse show in Vienna, Austria, where the famous Lipizzaner Stallions  were performing. During this fabulous performance I was a standee in the second balcony looking down on horses and riders. When the performance was over the audience remained respectful as the riders and horses gracefully retreated to the stalls. Without warning I was seized with a loud burst of repetitive sneezing and several really loud ah-choos rocked the hall. I made so much noise the horses bolted, reared up and almost threw riders. The audience on the first level instantly turned their gaze my way; I thought my fellow standees on the balcony would throw me into the arena. I tried to apologize silently with an embarrassed face but that did not go over well with anyone. Although I could not understand all the comments I got the message to exit quickly and quietly. After the horses had cleared the arena, loud applause showed appreciation for, I am sure, the performance, and not my sneezing. 

For more blog entries see: www.archibaldinsc.blogspot.com
To be removed from this list send "remove" e-mail to: arch@archibald99com
 

Women's breasts

A new book is out dealing with women's breasts. (Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, by Florence Williams).
A delightful review of this new book may be found here. About six hundred years ago, according to the review, Henri de Mondeville wrote to the King of France, "The reasons why the breasts of women are on the chest, whereas other animals more often have them elsewhere, are of three kinds. First, the chest is a noble, notable and chaste place and thus they can be decently shown. Secondly, warmed by the heart, they return their warmth to it so that this organ strengthens itself. The third reason applies only to big breasts which, by covering the chest, warm, cover and strengthen the stomach".
Also, according to the review, men viewed large breasts as a sign of a desirable woman for breeding. It is not recorded how women over the ages have looked upon that premise as a basis for mating. Also when women started having breast implants they had the last laugh on the men. As George Carlin used to say, "Women are crazy. Men are stupid. And men are stupid because women are crazy."

  

 

 

Trailside Anniversary - 5 Years On

Yesterday the residents of Trailside Apartments celebrated the 5th Anniversary of the opening of the second apartment house at Franke at Seaside,Mt. Pleasant, S.C. Two residents actually moved in on May 29, 2007, but the real intake began in June.

These are some snapshots taken at random of the wonderful residents. Most of these are unposed pictures and presented to show people enjoying themselves, each other and the happy occasion. (The pictures may be enlarged by clicking on the Slideshow link in the left corner of the site.)


We paid our respects to those former residents who have gone on but who were once part of our family. We acknowledged those who have arrived recently to bring new life and new ideas to the residence. 

Many of the families and the individuals living alone made and brought covered dishes. No one eats better than when a number of women put their hands to the skillet and turn on the stove. A bit of wine and adult beverages were enjoyed by most. Deserts were plentiful and delicious.  


Whether it is an apartment house in a busy metropolis or a quiet place like Franke at Seaside it is the residents who make a house a home. It is the spirit of camaraderie, of working together and simply being a good neighbor that makes the Trailside Building such a special place.

We give thanks to the women and men who organized the party (it is always the women, God bless 'em, who take the lead) and we look forward to the 10th Anniversary of Trailside. And we hope all the current residents will be on hand for that joyous day.
 

The Maltese Falcon

Came across this blog about one of my all-time favorite films: The Maltese Falcon. The last sentence says all that need be said: Nobody will ever make a better Sam Spade than Humphrey Bogart. 

01.27.12 

Guest blogger Angela Petteys 
(Note: Links not operative)

When you have more than one screen adaptation of a novel, usually one is more faithful to the book than the other. However, in the case of Dashiell Hammett's  The Maltese Falcon, it has two pretty accurate translations. The first version, released in 1931, stars Ricardo Cortez as detective Sam Spade, Bebe Daniels, and Thelma Todd, and it does a pretty good job of sticking to the source material. However, director John Huston's 1941 film, with Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet, is an even more accurate representation. It doesn’t stick to the novel exactly, but most of the dialogue is taken verbatim and the key story elements are kept intact. (Editor's Note: There was also a very loose 1936 adaptation, with Warren William and Bette Davis, entitled Satan Met a Lady.)
Most of the differences are pretty subtle and probably were changed for the sake of pacing. For example, in the 1941 movie Sam finds out about the arrival of the boat La Paloma after he wakes up in Kasper (“The Fat Man”) Gutman’s hotel room and starts looking around the room. It’s a much more drawn out process in the book. In the book, Sam finds out Brigid O’Shaughnessy didn’t go to his secretary Effie’s apartment like she was supposed to. Instead, she had the cab stop to get a newspaper, then she asked to be brought to the ferry building. So Sam gets a copy of the paper in question to look for clues, but doesn’t figure it out until he starts snooping around Joel Cairo’s room and notices that the newspaper section with ship arrivals was of particular interest to him. Although there’s nothing wrong with the way that part plays out as written by Hammett, if it were filmed that way, it would have slowed the picture down. Another difference is that the character of Gutman’s daughter is completely absent from the Bogart movie (as well as from the Ricardo Cortez version, for that matter), but she wasn’t exactly a vital character in the book.
A lot of the other changes were definitely made because of Hollywood’s production codes. What’s interesting about that content is that neither the 1931 nor the 1941 version gets it exactly right. The 1931 film tends to be a bit more scandalous than the book was, but it does include things that were in the book that couldn’t be included in the 1941 remake. There’s no way director Huston could have gotten away with the scene where Spade strip searches O’Shaughnessy after noticing that $1,000 of the $10,000 Gutman promised him was missing, but it was in the 1931 version. The 1941 movie also really had to downplay the fact that Cairo and Wilmer were both supposed to be gay, whereas the earlier adaptation made that fact much clearer. In the book, when O’Shaughnessy finds out that Sam has been talking to Cairo--who is prepared to pay more money than she can-- she offers to sleep with him and proceeds to spend the night at Sam’s apartment. When it comes to that part in the 1941 version, Brigid can’t offer herself to Spade or spend the night, so Sam just kisses her instead. As for Spade’s affair with Iva Archer, his partner Miles’s widow, the 1941 movie actually depicts what went on more accurately than the 1931 version. The first film made that affair more salacious than the book described. First of all, the book made Iva Archer out to be a little past her prime, which Thelma Todd most certainly was not. There also weren’t any scenes involving Iva showing up at Sam’s apartment and finding Brigid wearing her kimono, nor were there any of Miles listening on the extension while Sam and Iva set up a tryst.
I really enjoyed reading The Maltese Falcon, and I think anyone who likes either movie version would, too. Like I said, what you see in the two screen adaptations is pretty much what you get in the novel. And since it’s not a terribly long book, either, I definitely recommend reading it. As for which movie I prefer, I think it goes without saying that the Humphrey Bogart version wins hands down. The Ricardo Cortez version is good, but it doesn’t have the flawless cast and direction that the later one did. I always loved the cast of the 1941 film, but while I was reading the book and got to read exactly how each character was described, I feel like that version had some of the most perfect casting of all time. Nobody will ever make a better Sam Spade than Humphrey Bogart.
Angela runs the blog The Hollywood Revue and is a classic film enthusiast from Detroit. To keep up with the latest from The Hollywood Revue, please join her on Facebook.

Wikipedia to go black; death of a comedian

"Wikipedia, the popular community-edited online encyclopedia, will black out its English-language site for 24 hours to seek support against proposed US anti-piracy legislation that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said threatens the future of the internet.
"The service will be the highest profile name to join a growing campaign starting at midnight Eastern Time on Wednesday that will see it black out its page so that visitors will only see information about the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).
"The information will urge Wikipedia readers in the US to contact their local congressman to vote against the bills. Other smaller sites leading the campaign include Reddit.com and Cheezeburger.
" 'This is a quite clumsily drafted legislation which is dangerous for an open internet,' said Wales in an interview." (Source: Aljazeera.com website, 1/17/2012)

In a nutshell this is the issue: If a website publishes intellectual property, be a movie or a song or something similar, without permission, the website would be forced off the air, even if the publication was incidental and unintended. If you did a search on Google, for example, and it turned up this second website that contained the unauthorized material, Google could be closed down. The present procedure is to send notice to the offending website and have them remove the property in question. If they fail to do so other legal remedies are available to the rightful owners. Hollywood and other backers of the proposed legislation say the SOPA and PIPA legislation is essential to protecting their investments against intellectual piracy, which is a problem centered mainly outside the United States.  Critics say the legislation goes too far and, as Wales put it, "threatens the future of the internet."

*****

In a new book Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There, by Tom Davis the author recounts how entertainers and  artists of all types tried desperately to get on the Johnny Carson show. In the 70s, an appearance on Carson was the key to success and good fortune. It opened doors everywhere for a performer. One comedian, Davis recounts, had a tryout and used his best material and gave it everything he had. He was rejected by the talent director and staff. Ten days later he jumped off the roof of a hotel and landed in the parking lot of the Comedy Club in Hollywood. He had note in his pocket with his name on it and three words: "I was a comedian." (Source: delanceyplace.com, website, 1/17/2012)


(Complete blog is here.)

Beautiful Waterfront Park Mt. Pleasant SC

I've added three new albums of photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/archinsc .
There are pictures taken at the beautiful new waterfront park beneath the massive Ravenel Bridge in Mt. Pleasant SC; some updates on the progress at the Woodside Apartment building at Franke at Seaside and a picture of decorating one of our tenants did outside his apartment door over the 4th of July weekend. Hope you enjoy some or all of these. (Click on pictures for full size image.)

A South Carolina lady passes

Eartha Kitt, a South Carolina girl who by the stint of her own ability and charm climbed from the cotton fields of the old South to become one of the premier vocalists of the 20th Century died on Christmas - December 25, 2008. She will be missed by everyone who heard her sing. (Photo by Michelle V. Atkins, New York Times.)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

This week I saw "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," based on a book written by the Irish novelist John Boyne - he drafted the outline of the book in less than three days. The story revolves around an 8-year old boy who moves from early World War II Berlin with his father, mother and sister to a place in the country. This is a new assignment for his father, a senior officer in the SS, who has been made commandant of a killing concentration camp. The family does not know about this and lives a short distance from the camp in a secluded, beautiful house where the father also keeps his office. The boy is a typical 8-year old and takes to exploring. He encounters the barbed wire fence he believes is to keep the animals out of the farm he has been told is on the other side. He meets and befriends a 8-year old Jewish boy who is a prisoner. The story is about their friendship, betrayal and renewed friendship. The story of innocent youth is well dramatized and the end comes so quickly and with such devastation that when the picture ended no one in the local audience moved. The credits rolled for several minutes showing us the minutiae of even who the electrician was before anyone got up and left. It made such a strong impact. I recommend it highly.
(PS: I apologize if you receive this twice. I sent an earlier e-mail to family and friends but did not intend to load up your inbox.)