'Io Son L'Umile Ancella' - Mirella Freni

Took an out-of-focus picture of a lovely bride and handsome groom, changed things around a bit with Photoshop, enhancing colors and saturation, shadows and highlights, made it even more blurry and added a frosted glass effect, and this is the result.

Problem is, you can spend a lot of time doing this sort of thing, and then you wonder whether the final product is worth the effort.
-

Pão, pão, queijo, queijo

This is the name of a café-restaurant in Lisbon, not far from the Jerónimos abbey in Belém. Literally translated, it says "bread, bread, cheese, cheese". It is reputed to have some of the best baguettes in Lisbon, which is a city with bakeries in almost every block, and you can smell freshly-baked bread in the mornings when you wander the streets.

The name, however, is also from a Portuguese expression, meaning simply, down-to-earth, no-nonsense, practicality.
-

Midsummer

Gosh darn it, I missed it again yesterday. Had all these plans to wait up for it and just carry on like those guys do at Stonehenge, had the robes and wand all ready, the incantations, dance steps, all that stuff. Now I will have to wait another six months for the next one, the shorter one. Well, silly me for not looking at the calendar.
-

House No.5

Doorway No. 5

Here is the entrance to a larger house in Viseu, Portugal, than the one posted a couple of days ago. (I'm going through my old photographs of our trips, to pick out interesting ones which may tell a story, or else fire the imagination well enough to suggest a story.)

The house is in an older residential section of Viseu, and was probably built in the nineteenth century for an affluent merchant. At any rate, it was obviously constructed in the days before the advent of electricity, as evident from the bands of outside wiring strung above the door.

The house itself is sturdily built, stone being the chief material of its construction, and it does not appear to be in any dire need of major maintenance, at least not yet. The paint on the walls has begun to fade and peel, and the balcony and its supports could probably do with a good scrubbing, as can the intricately-designed and curved wrought iron railing on the balcony. But these are minor matters that do not need immediate attention, though a small investment in time or money would do wonders for the appearance of this façade.

The doorframe and the small balcony base are of dressed stone, as is the pilaster on the left. The stylized fleur-de-lys carving over the door would suggest that this house originally belonged to someone of the merchant class, rather than a member of the minor aristocracy, who would as likely as not have required the builder to place an armorial crest there. There are several little touches of the stonemason's art in the doorframe, such as the shapely curved headpiece and wings, and the small projections on either side. The painted numeral 5, in white on blue, required by the municipal authorities to make the postman's job easier, does detract a little from the elegance of the doorway.

The carved wooden door itself, although showing the effects of weathering, is stout and elegant, most noticeably in the middle where the two sides meet perfectly, even down to the machine-turned decorative baluster between the rectangular panels at the base. The inset key-hole is understated, and does not detract from the artistic integrity of the door, nor do the two little brass downward pointing hands that form double knockers above it.
The ovoid carvings, set within the magisterial I-shaped panels, offer attractive focal points to balance the twin knockers.

The brass mail slot is partially agape from the mail that has recently been stuffed there by a hurried postman, with the red corner of a piece of advertising material peeping out just enough to give the picture a tiny fillip of bright color.

As for the balcony above, its use, as always in architectural details of this type, is (like lip gloss) more decorative than functional, for one is unlikely ever to see an occupant there, unless it was to witness, for example, a Holy Week procession. The white-painted double door of the balcony, however, is interesting, in that it provides an impression of wide-eyed innocence behind the lacy veil of the balcony railing.
-

Christmas Eve 2007, Guimarães, Portugal.

In the main square of the town, early in the morning and cold, the menfolk are gathered to smoke and talk. Not sure whether this is a gathering that takes place every day, or this day is special because it is the Monday before Christmas Day, and thus a holiday. Maybe the women are all at Mass, or maybe they are at home preparing the consoada, the traditional Portuguese meal on Christmas Eve. In any case, the early light gives fine shadows and a pleasant composition. Note the British-style public telephone box on the right. The British have really left their mark in the port wine region of Portugal.
-

A house in Viseu

This humble old house is in a narrow cobblestoned street in a poorer neighborhood in the central Portuguese city of Viseu. Like many others of its type, the building is of stone and brick, and has a red tile roof. There are three levels, of which the lowest was probably once a cellar or store-room, or more likely a stable for domestic animals. It now has a door with a lock and a mail slot, so it was probably converted into a separate flat by the owner. The two upper floors form the original living quarters of the house, the front door of which is reached by ten stone steps flanked by rickety iron railings. One of them has lost an upright, making it unreliable, certainly for an older tenant. The doors, and especially the windows of the building are weathered and in serious need of new paint, as the large areas of bare wood testify. However, the cream-colored plaster of the wall appears to be in reasonable shape, and has perhaps recently been given a coat of paint, which is more than can be said for the houses on either side. The house on the right has a brick pillar from which most of the plaster or stucco has fallen away.

On the clothesline hang a pair of men's dark trousers, a pair of light blue men's pyjama trousers with a matching top, which has what appears to be a monogram or decoration above the right breast, a dish cloth and a kitchen towel. Perhaps we may surmise from these articles that the occupant of the upper flat is a single petit bourgeois male who, despite being in reduced circumstances, leads a simple, quiet and possibly solitary life, and who has succeeded in keeping his living quarters (rented, no doubt) in orderly fashion. It is likely that he walks to his place of employment, which may be close enough to be reached on foot, and that he carries his lunch with him. Is it possible that he has a lady friend who visits him from time to time, say, to mend the tear in the pocket of his trousers? It would not be surprising to me if in fact he does. The telltale signs are the colorful clothespins fastened here and there on the clothesline. These could only have been purchased by a woman.
-

Chicken soup and other things

Tonight I made chicken and vegetable soup for dinner. Used a pressure cooker, for speed. Actually wanted to make an all-veggie soup, but my wife wanted to add some chicken we had in the freezer. No, I haven't yet had a chance to see "Food, Inc." the movie. But from all the reviews I've been reading, it sure sounds like a stomach-turner. Especially the segment on chicken-farming. Maybe I'll just wait till the movie comes out on DVD. That way, I will be able to fast-forward past the really unnerving parts of the movie.

* * *

Lovely mild day today. Went down to the repair shop to pick up my ancient Rainbow vacuum cleaner, still good after 37 years. The only things that it needed were a new cord, a good cleaning and lube, plus new motor-brushes, and now it runs perfectly again. The thing I really like about it is that the dust is collected in a water tank instead of a messy bag.

* * *

Have resumed my daily walks, and feel more energized as a result. Now, if I could just get rid of the pounds I took on over the past couple of weeks. Maybe skipping lunch might help.

-

A quiet spell, and peanut butter

After many days, the Muse is back in circulation. Our overseas visitors have left for home, the countless dinner parties and dances and get-togethers are now no more than pleasant memories. The large platters of feijoada, diabo, boeuf bourgignon, capela, curries, the offerings of chilicotes, samosas, shrimp toast, flan, bebinca de leite, coqueiras, and other sweetmeats, not to mention the succession of restaurant meals, have added to our avoirdupois and pumped up our blood sugar levels, while the dancing and singing and laughter of the past week and a half, added to the long drives to the far corners of the Bay Area, have left us in a breathless state close to exhaustion.

This reunion was akin to an alignment of the planets, as these longtime friends came from several continents to join together for the same reason as they had in years past – simply to celebrate their long friendships and chat and laugh about old times. And so, the ten days went by in a blaze of picture-taking and videotaping for the benefit of those who were not able to be here to participate.

And now we are, to the best of our ability, once again ready to resume our lives in the manner to which we are accustomed. At our age, you really can't keep up the hectic pace of daily parties for long, even though dancing is good exercise (or so I'm told).

***

My wife bought this jar of peanut butter. Peanut butter comes in plastic jars these days, not glass ones as in the past. I sort of miss the glass jars – somehow plastic does not seem right for peanut butter.

The jar has a label which says "Made with U.S.Grown Peanuts" and that the product is "organic", which appears to be an adjective that's highly valued by manufacturers of foodstuff these days. Now, I ask myself, are U.S.-grown peanuts superior to those coming from other countries, say, in West Africa, for example? Does this label contain an implicit message that this is the case, and that, as patriotic Americans, we should buy this brand (which, by the way, is the brand of one of those "big box" warehouse stores)? The label sure has a faint tinge of xenophobia to it, IMHO.

Is "organic" more desirable than non-organic? And what's the difference, anyhow?

In today's newspaper there's a story about a new movie that's coming out tomorrow, a documentary called "Food, Inc."

Food, Inc.

I intend to see it, if only to satisfy my curiosity.
-

Error Message

Yep. It's finally happened. It came on quite suddenly. One minute the digital camera was working just fine, and the next ... well, this is what happened.

On the LCD screen - E 91:01, flashing away. Tried to do the reset with a pencil tip in the little hole. Went through the whole initialization process, date and time, personal preferences, language, exposure, backlight, zebra pattern, the works. Got all that done. But the flashing didn't go away.

Browsed the internet to see if other people had run into this problem, and, would you believe it, there were literally hundreds of owners of cameras, as well as of many other electronic gadgets, all clamoring for help with the E 91:01 message. And most of the responses were for the owners to send the damn thing to the manufacturer for repair. In my case, with it being a Sony, we're talking a basic charge of a couple hundred bucks, and that does not even include the cost of any parts the repair might need.

So what to do? It's a big heavy camera, not a pocket point-and-shoot. Everything else is working fine. Takes excellent photos. Great lens. But I can't flog it on eBay unless the problem is fixed. I decided to keep it with the flashing E 91:01, and use an external flash when needed. Tested that, works fine. Not the best solution, seeing as there's going to be added weight with the flash. But then I use it mostly outdoors, without the flash. Besides, I can rationalize that the on-camera pop-up flash is practically useless anyhow in most situations except for flash fill.

-