May, 2024

"This Just In..."

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Sunshine. Blue skies. Optimism. (did we go too far?)

It's May and it's time to get out and enjoy a bit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (And maybe a good deal on A/C)

We thought we'd send along some words - well a lot this month - that might contribute to your happiness. As always we do thank you for reading and playing along with us.

Adolf Dehn, Spring in Central Park

Adolf Dehn was a Minnesota-born artist known mainly as a lithographer. Throughout his artistic career, he participated in and helped define some important movements in American art, including regionalism, social realism, and caricature. 

A two-time recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, he was known for both his technical skills and his high-spirited, droll depictions of human foibles.

He is remembered as a prolific artist of great range. His works are held in over 100 museums (including the National Gallery of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art).

Frank Bruni of the New York Times reviewed all the passages of prose featured in the For the Love of Sentences section of the Times Opinion newsletter last year.

What follows is a sample of the sentences that, upon fresh examination, made him smile the widest or nod the hardest or wish the most ardently and enviously that he’d written them.

Erin Thompson reflected on the fate of statues memorializing the Confederacy: “We never reached any consensus about what should become of these artifacts. Some were reinstalled with additional historical context or placed in private hands, but many simply disappeared into storage. I like to think of them as America’s strategic racism reserve.”



Maureen Dowd eulogized her friend Jimmy Buffett: “When he was a young scalawag, he found the Life Aquatic and conjured his art from it, making Key West the capital of Margaritaville. He didn’t waste away there; he spun a billion-dollar empire out of a shaker of salt.”

 Alexis Soloski described her encounter with the actor Taylor Kitsch: “There’s a lonesomeness at the core of him that makes women want to save him and men want to buy him a beer. I am a mother of young children and the temptation to offer him a snack was sometimes overwhelming.”

Nathan Englander contrasted Tom Cruise in his 50s with a typical movie star of that age 50 years ago: “Try Walter Matthau in ‘The Taking of Pelham 123.’ I’m not saying he wasn’t a dreamboat. I’m saying he reflects a life well lived in the company of gravity and pastrami.”

Rick Reilly put Mike McDaniel, the sunny head coach of the Miami Dolphins, and Bill Belichick, the gloomy head coach of the New England Patriots, side by side:

“One is as open as a new Safeway, and the other is as closed up as an old submarine. One will tell you anything you want; the other will hand out information on a need-to-go-screw-yourself basis. One looks like a nerd who got lost on a stadium tour and wound up as head coach. The other looks like an Easter Island statue nursing a grudge.”

Gustave Moreau, Death of Sapho



Gustave Moreau was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence". More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Moreau

Kicking off our grand opening, David and John Daniels and David DeTuccio hosted more than 60 local fire, police, EMT first responders to their new 60,000-gallon propane facility at 103 Mill Rock Rd. East in Old Saybrook. 

Headed up by Fire Marshall Peter Terenzi, the attendees were given the tour and were provided insights into how the new facility will operate and covered all city, State and industry safety protocols.

This brings Daniels Propane storage capacity to more than 150,000 gallons, guaranteeing that we will have ample supply for our customer base.

If it were easy – like last month – we’d have to go through 272 entries! Not this month.

Match the proper Art with the clue and you may win a Arthurized Amazon Gift Card. Just list the letters in order. (C, L A. etc that sort of answer). You may need a drink - so see next item.

Tell us here

It's May.



You’re out on the deck.

Or the porch.

Or lying on the grass in the yard.

You might even be sailing across the Sound on an ancient wooden vessel once owned by Johnny Depp.

No matter where you are…you may need libation. Here with a suggestion.

1 1/2 shots of reposado tequila (or any good quality blanco)

juice of half a ruby grapefruit

1/2 shot of agave syrup or sugar syrup

about 75ml club soda

a squirt of fresh lime juice (optional)

Mix the grapefruit juice, tequila and sugar syrup until well mixed.

Pour over a tall glass filled with ice and top up with soda water. You could add a squirt of lime juice which is nice, and you could also rim the glass with salt or…not.

*1 shot = 25ml

A Michigan ham radio operator used a homemade setup with a handheld antenna to talk to an astronaut orbiting the Earth on the International Space Station. The astronaut even sent him a QSL card acknowledging the conversation (included at the end of the video).

The ISS even has an unofficial program that allows students to talk to astronauts on the station via ham radio.

An almost-all-volunteer organization called Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, or ARISS, now helps arrange contact between students and astronauts on the space station. Students prepare to ask questions rapid-fire, one after another, into the ham radio microphone for the brief 10-minute window before the space station flies out of range.

“We try to think of ourselves as planting seeds and hoping that we get some mighty oaks to grow,” said Kenneth G. Ransom, the ISS Ham project coordinator at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

That this is even possible with low-powered communication devices underscores just how close the ISS is to Earth: 200-250 miles above the surface. That’s the distance between Dallas & Houston or NYC to Boston.

Here’s the video on how he did it – skip to the 1:40 spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLt5Vvgc1vA&t=8s

Kazimir Malevich, “Woman with Rake,” 1932

Kazimir Malevich was an avant-garde artist and art theorist, whose pioneering work and writing influenced the development of abstract art in the 20th century.

 He was born in Kiev, modern-day Ukraine, to an ethnic Polish family.

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevich

Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury

In his own words:

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college.

People should educate themselves—you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.

This fabulous sculpture is by Sarah Bernhardt.

You know her. Very famous French actress of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. But….did you know she was a sculptress as well?

She set up a studio at 11 boulevard de Clichy in Montmartre, where she frequently entertained her guests dressed in her sculptor's outfit, including white satin blouse and white silk trousers. Rodin dismissed her sculptures as "old-fashioned tripe", and she was attacked in the press for pursuing an activity inappropriate for an actress.

She was defended by Émile Zola, who wrote "How droll! Not content with finding her thin, or declaring her mad, they want to regulate her daily activities...Let a law be passed immediately to prevent the accumulation of talent!"

Here’s a whole lot more to this amazing woman here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Bernhardt

Mr. (and President) Adams.

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.“

-John Adams (American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer)

Way more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams

Where Are We?

Two towers in a city of towers. One of them leans to the left which is natural since the whole city leans to the left.

Tell us here what city we are in and you may win an aged Amazon gift card!

Last month 206 of you - an all time high - plus Rebecca A, Gwen B, David R and Mark B. recognized the art inspired by Mary Tyler Moore’s TV show (not That Girl).

Carol G and Suzanne C. recognized either Nathan Filion or Bob Saget. Thank you all for playing - and good luck this month.

Can’t figure out how winner Rebecca A. was sure it was Mary Tyler Moore!

Juan Brufal, “Lemon Tree”

He’s a digital artist in Port d’Alcudia, Spain. And, he’s on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/psicodigitalarte/about

"Social media gives the right to speak to legions of imbeciles" who previously only spoke at the bar after a glass of wine, without damaging the community.

They were immediately silenced, but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner.

It’s the invasion of imbeciles."

-Umberto Eco

More about Mr. Eco here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco