It has been a long week.

They're gone!!!! Outside of the compressed media event inside the Fleet Center; there was very little there here. (apologizes to Oakland, CA.)

What matters is they are gone. There was a bit of circular traffic jam, the delegates leaving out one door and the natives returning through the other. I think I'll miss the the peace and quite created by everyone moving out of town for a week. We should have these conventions more often.

The next stop for this political road show in Madison Square Garden in my beloved Manhattan. Unlike Boston, NY'ers will see this as just another one of many road shows to slip through town, drop their elephant poop in the streets, (or is it donkey????) get followed by the street sweepers and the street cleaning machines. It won't be the first political mess cleaned up in NYC. It won't be the last.

I had looked forward to the Willie Nelson appearance, but even that was infected by the robot like staging plaguing this convention. When the Hope... signs cropped up at the right moment during the John Edwards speech, I felt sick to my stomach. So much for the individuality of each state contingent. It was the Stepford conventioneers.

If it wasn't for people like my mentor, Harold Ickes, Jr. I would stop watching politics.

=30=

Opera minor upgrade.

Have I mentioned recently how much I am enjoying all of the features of the new Opera browser/email/newsreader/coffee maker? Okay, it doesn't make coffee, but that's okay, because I don't drink it anymore.

Every once in a while I go back to see if the software has been upgraded. Normally I would do this with software looking for a fix to a problem.

Opera is giving me no problems. I still look for the upgrades out of habit. As you have probably already surmised, there has been a small upgrade, from 7.52 to 7.53. Downloaded it, using Opera 7.52. Upgraded seamlessly and am now cruising along on 7.53.

Though I still admit, the radical but incredibly intelligent change in the way email is handled does take a bit getting used to. But, once you get it, and that's what you have to do, "get it," it takes a weight off your shoulders. You no longer need to wonder where everything is filed.
=30=

From the evening news...

Only one arrest so far. It was on The Common. Don't know, don't really care for what.

Right now it's just a matter of keeping score. It will be sorted out in the end.

One point I think should be noted, the protesters refused to be corralled into the gulag created for them, razor wire and all.

I don't blame them.
=30=

At a recent outing in Avon-by-the-Hudson, Andrew displayed British hospitality,
but a poor understanding of how to use the Bar-b-que utensils.  =30=

A little bit more about Leonard Cohen...-

Though I know he is best known for his music, I was first introduced to Leonard Cohen though his writing, his poetry. I was in the local book store, on Broadway and 12th Street in Manhattan, looking for the poetry of Sarah Teasdale.


I was browsing though the books of poetry on the shelf when I came upon a short poem:

Come up to my room,
I was thinking of you
and made a pass at myself.
© Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen Collection

Once in a while something grabs you, takes hold and makes you want more. That short poem made me want more. To a smaller degree, Champagne Charlie a song by Leon Redbone caught my attention and caused me to go out and buy all there is of his stuff.

Neither the poem nor the song mentioned were the best works of either men. They were the point in time and space where we intersected, where they caused me to look aside and notice them.

We come to many intersections in life, most just blur by like the signs in local stations as you ride the express. Like Mr. G, or Neil Gaiman mentioned below, I just happened by them and stopped to look, to listen. My life is richer for it.
=30=

Instead of Random, Widespread would be a better name..

I did a Google search for Random Thoughts, loosely grazing and came up with a few thousand hits. It would seem, and I agree wholeheartedly, that the phrase Random Thoughts and blogging go hand in hand. Except where blogs are tightly focused on one issue, a campaign, a product or cause, all of the blogs are the randomly created thoughts of the blog author.

The good news, if it can be called that, Boogie Street is also a common phrase with over three thousand hits on Google. Most of the hits have to do with Leonard Cohen's song of the same name.


The good news is, if you search for belltowernews.com, you come right to this blog. If I am going to promote, though at the moment I can't think of why I should, it will be with the com name of belltower.

=30=

LIFE RULE NUMBER 421b

NEVER, EVER, TRY TO MAKE AN OMLETTE WITH BAKED BEANS. It doesn't work. =30=

News from around the country...

Here I am stuck in Boston, surrounded by the DNC. If it wasn't for the Yahoo! and Google News I might have missed the other important news from around the country.


... Very important, of course, is that Eads and Fox are welcome back into the CSI fold. The publicity stunt pulled by the production company had me on the edge of my chair. Whew!

The people attending the comics convention in San Diego, or Day-Go, as we called in in the Marines, look like they're having a LOT more fun than the people of Boston at the much more serious convention being held here. I vote to have the comics convention here next time.


... There, it would seem, was held the branding, or naming of the next Star Wars III. It will be Revenge of the Sit'h. Okay, there's a name that makes my blood boil, my interest peak, my brain wonder who was the idiot that came up with one?


... Than, most important, is the news that J. K. Rowlings, I know I don't need to tell you who she is, is expecting her third child.


... And, much more locally, the Yankees and the Red Sox had a brawl on the field when the Yankee who was hit by a pitch dropped the F bomb on the pitcher. F-bomb is local usage. If you can't figure out what it means, leave a comment to this blog and I will clarify it for you. .=30=

A gift to me.

This is a general thank you note to all of the people who have given me a copy of this wonderful book. This and Zen Flesh, Zen Bones are the quick reads to put you on The Path. If there is a "Path". How zen of me.... =30=

Newspapers - They might as well be made of stone.

The is coming to town.

Boston has developed a mentality similar to that I experienced while living along the coastline of the Carolinas during hurricane season. There were those who went on about their business, there were those who boarded up, stored emergency supplies and stuck it out and there were those who packed up and moved inland.

I have seen all three over the past few weeks. The dire predictions have been projected by the mass media, but most hysterically by our self-esteemed daily papers, the Herald and The Globe. You would think we were already under attack with the dire warnings about pending this and pending that. We are to expect the 1968 Chicago Convention compounded by terrorist, both foreign and domestic, "activity."

It is the activity justified by the need for "security" I have found myself fearing more than anything else.

There is the pizza shop that displayed a pro-Bush banner across the street from The Fleet Center that was told it had to take the banner down because they lacked a permit.

Though I may disagree with the sentiment expressed by the banner, the act of making them take it down makes me sick to my stomach. In defiance the store owner is leaving the banner up and closing for the week of the convention. I hope the foreign press covered this little side story. That way I can read about what really happened in The Guardian.

We were told to double our expected commuter time. I have a feeling, at least for Monday and Tuesday, the time will instead be cut in half. A lot of people have chosen the option of moving inland to avoid the storm. It is Summer, it is vacation time. I pity the people on the The Cape.

If I am wrong about this, I will say so here.=30=

Another Cult Author

Cult Author may be too strong a word to use for Neil Gaiman. His stories are of interest to me. They are of interest of many other people. We don't meet at the Loge des Neuf Soeurs in Paris and dance naked around a fire pit chanting his name. We do, haphazardly chat electronically about the characters, the stories and the travels of the author himself. In America, that would be called a "fan-base."

Neverwhere was the first of his books to catch my interest. In my cloistered environment, I believed I had discovered a "new" author. Wondering if he had ever produced any other work, I did a Google on him, only to discover he not only was prolific, but his stories were made into television series, he produced adult level sci-f/fantasy comic books and was admired by millions. His children's book, Coraline should only be read by very stable children, and very stable adults, for that matter.

American Gods was not a book I wanted to read except in the company of others. Its concept involves gods from outside America. They were brought here by immigrants, settled and evolved locally over the centuries. They fall victim, in a survival of the fittest manner, to the newly created American gods. The hero becomes involved. His involvement becomes the story.

More could be said about the story, but I hate a review when it reveals too much.

Suffice it to say it is a well told tale, told as a contemporary legend. The narrative engaged me and kept me glued to the pages to the point of being rude to others. Worth reading. All of his stuff I have yet to encounter is well worth reading. =30=

92 pages go.

Just to keep you up to date on the Franklin Biography, the Declaration of independence has been signed, the meeting with Lord Howe in Staten Island is over and he is on the way to France with his two grandsons. Just thought you might like to know. =30=

JibJab

My friend from CT sent me this Political Satire. Both sides could say it is for them. If you watch it carefully, it's FOR neither of them. It's worth it for the laugh. It's worth much more for the kick in the pants it gives all of us. =30=

Itchy Feet, metaphor...

The Zen master Suziki is quoted as saying, when asked if reading can lead to enlightenment: That is like saying will I get rid of the itch on my foot if I scratch the sole of my master's shoes.

Good night! =30=

I think I've figured out a few ways not to have those obnoxious framed book ads, and still get to display the graphic of the books I want you to see. This is the cover of Meetings With Remarkable Men. It's a book, the first of a trilogy, by Mr. G.

In it is the line that has been the corner stone of my lifestyle for over thirty years. To paraphrase: If it's worth going, go first class, including the postage.

This can have whatever meaning you want it to have. If you think it means you should indulge yourself, gorge on life, then do so.

If you take it to mean, if you're going to bother doing something, do it right and then support it, then you would be closer to my meaning.
Mr. G. was many things to many people. If you never read anything else by him, or about him, it is worth it to read this.

Meetings With Remarkable Men was made into a movie, with Terrance Stamp. I was at its premier in Lincoln Center in NYC. If that means something to you, greetings from the far side! If you want to know what I looked like twenty five years ago, pause the videotape on the man who winds the sound contest in the beginning of the movie. My spitting image. =30=

The Tibetan Book of the Dead DVD narrated by Leonard Cohen. Okay, in the words of my nephew, Tad, this is way cool!!

Smoky Mirrors

-
This afternoon, one of our younger Associates, one who didn't receive my training, asked me what it meant when he was told our business was all "smoky mirrors."

It was very, very hard not to break out laughing.

I knew he was serious. It is my business to take serious questions seriously.

When I told him the phrase was "Smoke and Mirrors" a blank look filled every inch of his face.
Most of nature, I told him in my aged veteran's voice, is smoke and mirrors. We're just very good at it. The face was still blank.

Then I remembered an old trick of my history teacher, tell me what do you think it means, I said.

A twenty minute monologue followed, during which he did everything but answer the question. He seemed satisfied, I was satisfied and sent him on his way.

The way I see it, if you're in a business that is all smoke and mirrors, perhaps it's a good thing if some of the people who work there don't know what smoke and mirrors mean. =30=

I forgot to give credit to Amy's New York Notebook for the Franco-American blog.

For my friend going to Paris...

I found a blog for you. Look it over carefully. It has a lot of good material for an American in France. It's called NYC a Paris. There are all sorts of French letter things in the name. When you go to the site, write back to me and tell me why the French have to complicate a perfectly good alphabet... Whoops... =30=

Once in a while...

I pop over to the Gawker Blog just to remind myself I am no longer a young man in Manhattan, and why that is is good thing. The tidbit of interest during this visit was to be exposed to the Break Up News. It sounds awful. For the most part it is. That's what makes it so great. =30=

More blog wandering...Postcards from the past...

Found a blog with a sidecar of post cards of older big buildings in NYC.

These are the buildings of my youth. I've had something to do, in one way or another, with at least 80 percent of the buildings shown.
The Commodore Hotel held an auction before it was transformed into a hideous glass monster. I managed to get the rolltop desk used by the building manager.
So, if you like postal cards, or The City or just big buildings from the turn of the last century, it's worth a trip to =30=

As is the wont of Bloggers...

As is the wont of blogger, I have been bouncing from blog to blog for inspiration and enightenment. Boogie Street as usual did both.
-
I have noticed many of the blogs with product placement subtley and not so the same scattered around. Today it was my turn to make an attempt at the same. In the previous entry, boxed-in graphic links to the books mentioned in the body were oddly placed. The entry before that has an attempt to put the link and body of the remarks all in a frame. Below here is a "text" reference.


-
It will take some fudging, but I am sure I can nudge these links in without glaring interuptions in my thought process.
=30=

The Shallow Shoals of Youth

At some time, while wading in the shallow shoals of youth, I obtained the advice to keep three books "running" at all time. No more, no less. I don't recall the source of that advice, though it does sound like something George G. would say.

He was the one who advised that to really learn by reading, be it a book, a list, or recipe; it must be read three times, preferablly once out loud. As more is understood about how the human brain learns, the truth of the last advice is being proven.

But, the three books are the focus of this comment.

Until I finished the Evanovich book, I did have three books running. Now I need another. The three books, to delve further into the mechanics of the advice, should be of three differnt types. One should be for your general improvement, one should be for entertainment and the other should be a book you wouldn't normally read.



The book for improvement is the biography of Mr. Franklin. The book for entertainment is the Ten Big Ones, the Evanovich book. (see blog below...)



The book I wouldn't normally read is called Yellow Dog, a Novel. It is written by Martin Amis. It is painful to read. The style is fractured, London-hip and full of inuendos and sideways glances only a Londoner would fully appreciate.

As a New Yorker, I am sure many such books have been written about New York, even Manhattan that a ploughman from Yorkshire would find incomprehensible. Therefore, it is irresponsible of me to say this is a poorly written book. It's just a book the topic and style of which are alien to me. Though most of the words can be found in our common dictionaries, the order in which they have been placed, and the objects to which they refer can give me eye strain and vertigo simultaneously.

The point here is the number of books and not the books themselves, The book for entertainment is a book that can be read just about anywhere, by the pool, at breakfast, sitting wherever you sit to wait for whatever it is worth waiting.

The book for your improvement should be given one or at most, two solid comfortable places to read. In the case of Ben, it is the couch by the east bay window in the living room. People should know that when you are sitting in this place reading, it is not a place where you should be disturbed for trivial matters. It is a place where, if home alone, you would let the phone ring.

The third book has a very specific place in which to be read. It is the bathroom, on the loo, on the john, crapper, comode, toilet, etc. A place from which you cannot escape. The positive side is that the length of reading time is shortened. Assuming your bowels don't cause you to spend endless hours indisposed. It took me a month to finish Yellow Dog. It took me two days, two work days, to read Ten Big Ones. Ben, I read a chapter at a time.

When the advice mentioned in the first paragraph was given, the Internet, along with it's freedom to publish and freedom to research, did not exist. I look at the Internet as a fourth book. The fourth book can be used to compliment the other three. It can be used to find out about the author, the publisher, the subjects and topics of the books themselves. It broadens the experience and numbs the mind simultaneously. Much like this beginning of the Twenty First Century is doing to me.

=30=

Janet pulled me from Ben

I am sure you have been waiting patiently for my comments regarding the latest biography of Benjamin Franklin. I must admit I was dragged away just before Ben crossed the Atlantic, back to England, (without his wife,) during the early years of the reign of George III. It was by a Tasteycake of a book called Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich. Being an admitted addict of her books, I will sadly say, without giving away the plot, such as there is, this was my least favorite of the Stephanie Plum books. The characters were rubberstamps of themselves, there was no conclusion, the laughs were much thinner than usual and the end, well it just plain sucked. There I said it. Of course, I would not have given up a chance to read it for anything, and I look forward to the next book, Eleven whatever, where she, Janet that is, will redeem herself. It was the ending, that literally came out of nowhere, that was most disappointing. Did you ever get the feeling an author was tired of writing and just wrapped things up, sometimes neatly, sometimes not? This was it. It was worse than the Johnny Depp film where he walks through the brightly lit castle doorway with no explanation as to why and what happens afterward. For those of you who have read the book, I ask you: aren't you a tad curious about what happened at the shower. Where did she sleep that night? With whom, etc... And does Joe wear boxers or briefs? These are all very important to the plot, to the character development, to my sleep. It was like opening a box of Twinkies, only to find one missing and the one left without filling. You would still eat the Twinkie, but you would certainly examine the next package carefully, very carefully. Back to Ben... =30=

Spam Spam Spam Spam!!! on Sunday, no less!

I've never counted them before, SPAM messages. I just deleted them.

This morning, I was too lazy to go the extra step of deletion after moving them from the SPAM directory to the Trash. Now I look over to Mail column in my Opera 7.52's M2 and see that between eight this morning and now, 7:30 p.m., I have received 297 SPAM messages.

It would be good if the deletion was automatic. I suspect our ISP, Comcast, has already deleted a good deal of them before my reader picks them up. Unfortunately, about two or three times a week, I discover a message I DO want read in the SPAM pile.

The Opera 7.52 mail reader M2 does an outstanding job of winnowing out the luncheon meat and leaving mostly what I want to see. I can breeze through the headers to see if I want to download any of the messages delegated to the SPAM directory at my leisure. This is a good thing. As I have mentioned a few times in the past, we like a good thing.
----------

My father

While walking around The City with my son, I had a vague recollection of doing the same with my father about a half century ago. I remembered the brown suit, the fedora and the thin red mustache on his ruddy skin. What I couldn't conjure up was his face.
-
He left our household before I have any real memory of his being there. I have a memory of his things being there, large photographs of people in tuxedos sitting around huge tables; gathered in cavernous halls. I remember the oddly frozen faces all staring up expectantly, waiting for the flash. I remember trying to find my father's face in the crowd, almost always failing.
-
I remember his sailor hat from the The War.
-
A photo I have of him was taken before I was born. He is standing next to my mother, both seemingly dressed for a fancy dress ball with a '40s theme. She's smiling and he has the same expression I've always seen on photos of Dashiell Hammett.

-
He was thin, too thin. The suit hung on him, like it was cut for a bigger man. On his lapel is the ruptured duck worn by veterans of the war. I have a feeling the photo was taken very soon after his return from the Pacific theatre.
-
The only other photo of him we have was taken on Rye Beach sometime in the early '50s. It is of him, in slacks and a shirt, the shade from the fedora hiding the facial features. He is standing behind my brothers and I.
-
We're dressed in bathing suits. I barely come up to his knee. He has one hand on my shoulder. I don't think it was a touch of affection. More likely to keep me in place long enough for the Kodak Brownie to snap.
-
He either left soon after this was taken, or it was a rare weekend we all spent with him after he left.
-
He died in 1985 while I was living in San Francisco. I had returned from a visit to New York the day before he died. It didn't even cross my mind to see him while I was there.
-
His girlfriend called me asking me to tell him to go to the doctor. When he got on the phone, I asked him to act like I was telling him to go to the doctor, but that I knew he would do as he damned well pleased. He thanked be for being so understanding and hung up.
-
So, to me, my father's last words were to thank me for being so understanding.
-
It was his wish to be cremated; his ashes spread over the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
-
The ashes are still in a cardboard box, wrapped in brown paper. It sits on top of the hot water heater in our oldest brother's garage in south Jersey.
-
That's fine with the four of us.
=30=

Conversation with a ten year old...

Each evening, when we can, my son and I go for a walk after dinner. Sometimes we turn right and go up the hill. Sometimes it's left out on to the main road. Then the choice is south to the Civil War monument, affectionately called The Monument. Or should we go north as far as Short Street?

This evening, it was north.

Along the way, we noticed a yellow arrow spray-painted on the berm along the roadside. That started the conversation on graffiti on the "T" tracks under Boston.

From there to the traditional prison garb in Britain, to the stripes on classic American prison wear. The topic wandered over to the unique quality of Zebra markings and the similarities and differences between brothers.

By the time we turned back we were in the Hawian Islands, the Earl of Sandwich and prepared meat. We ended it with the concluding word "Bologna" as we again passed the spray painted yellow arrow in the road.

James Burke, eat your heart out!!! =30=

A Brit goes Back! 

Rain! Rain! Go away!

Come to play another day, like tomorrow, when I am working.
++
My family will be going up to the family compound in Maine for the next week, leaving me behind in sweltering Boston to earn the keep, to bring the bacon home to an empty house...
Oh, boo-hoo for me, right? I have a family, I have a home and bacon to bring.
++
Lillian and Glen are also leaving to go back to The City this afternoon. They are taking with them their wee bairn, Olivia and Ellen. Having the children with us for a week was a joy.
__

And now for something completely different:

The first book for summer reading is Benjiman Franklin: An American Life by former CNN CEO and Chairman Walter Isaacson. I am up to chapter seven, "The Politician."

Rendering a full opinion will wait the book's completion, but I can say, so far so good.

Not as much fun as Franklin's biography, but certainly more informative about the side characters Franklin left out. More to follow:::::: =30=

Lillian and Glen tie the knot! 

When in the course..

...of human events... These few words,first published 228 years ago where the starter's pistol for a run that continues to this day. Though at times not happy with the people in government, I am certainly happy with the form of government that evolved.

Our small New England town still uses the Town Meeting form of government. I sit on a commission entrusted with the protection of a portion of our natural resources. We are all volunteers. It feels healthy, it feels like it works. Cumbersome at times, but at least the people haven't the excuse of an anonymous government doing things over which they have no control.

Of course, on the federal/corporate level, that is true. It is a force of nature beyond the control of the common man. It is a bus with no brakes driving down a windy mountain road. The trick is to know when to jump out of the way and not go down with it.

To all who so celebrate, Happy Fourth! =30=

Not so lazy days of summer

The three children in our house are rejoicing in the summer weather. They are in frolic mode. Ah to be young and clueless again! Gameboy has replaced PC Video games as the contemporary "opium" of the masses. Our son started playing it at the beginning of a long car ride and was still playing four hours later. I am afraid to pick the thing up. It might suck me out of my phama of choice, the Blog.

This started out as a complaint about having to work in my air-conditioned, windowless office while the youth of the world frolicked, played tennis, saw Garfiled, The Movie and just generally enjoyed life. But then, it hit me that we were both having fun and doing what we like to do on a summer day. I hate frolicking. I have never enjoyed the mode. When I go to carnivals, I spend my time figuring out how rubes are robbed.

I hope some just told me to cheer up. Like Charley Brown once said to Lucy, "Smile you poor sweet baby." I will pretend our orange cat just said that to me. Ramble Mode Off. =30=

Still Plugging Along

The past week at work has been too hectic for me to do anything else but focus on it. Tomorrow is the first day of the third quarter, the first day of July, and the first day of RFP review. I will be a zombie until Friday. Then we have a three day weekend, only two of which will I be 'on call.' This is a good thing and we like good things. =30=