Ascot Gavotte

The charming divertissement from "My Fair Lady".

Why don't they make musicals like that anymore?



Every duke and earl and peer is here
Everyone who should be here is here
What a smashing, positively dashing spectacle
The Ascot opening day

At the gate are all the horses
Waiting for the cue to fly away
What a gripping, absolutely ripping
Moment at the Ascot opening day

Pulses rushing, faces flushing
Heartbeats speed up, I have never been so keyed up
And second now they'll begin to run,
Hark a bell is ringing, they are springing forward look, it has begun

What a frenzied moment that was
Didn't they maintain an exhausting pace?
'Twas a thrilling, absolutely chilling
Running of the Ascot opening race

Ah, yes. Spam

I get dozens of e-mails every day from people I don't know (and really have no wish to know). They have names like Krishna Gillis, Abbot Gore, Dulcinda Lala, Chaim Haleluya, Hugibert Fulawa, Aguinaldo Germaine, Beulah Bottleby, Ferril Darnworth, Marcellus Stanton, Traci Winemonger, Roxanne Murieta. Some names are more imaginative than others, but the more outrageous ones cannot be reproduced here, for reasons of propriety.

What these individuals (if indeed that's what they are) are contacting me about covers a whole spectrum of products and services, many having to do with pharmaceutical items intended to enhance performance or correct specific dysfunctions. But there are others that try to sell computer software, fake Rolex watches, college degrees, or offer debt relief in these trying times. These e-mail messages are known as 'spam', which is the brand name for a kind of luncheon meat I recall eating around the time that World War II ended. It's still around, but you have to be careful, as the fat and salt content in Spam is way up there.

Getting thirty to forty spam messages in one day is not unusual, but here I may have myself to blame, as I use more than one e-mail account. My e-mail server has a spam guard that filters out what it suspects to be spam, and that's good. What's not good is that sometimes the filter doesn't only weed out spam; it may also throw good, legitimate e-mail messages into the Spam folder, and if I'm not careful, these may be trashed forever without having ever been read. Has happened, to my chagrin and that of friends.

So now I don't automatically empty the Spam folder, sight unseen. Instead I examine the senders' names carefully to make sure that among the phony e-mails there isn't one that I really should open and read.

A Riverboat ride

I made this short video about our boat ride on the Li River in South China last April.

There was a steady drizzle throughout the day, but that gave the scenery the very magical quality that you get in Chinese brush paintings, with the low clouds weaving through the fantastic peaks of the karst landscape.

Shanghai Market

Here's a video of a short visit to a food market in Shanghai, China, during our tour earlier this year.

Landscape, Autumn, Northern California

Belly Dancing

For a respite from the monotonous economic and election news, how about something different


Shunyata from Patrick on Vimeo.

Old House, New Front

This is a part of the front of an old building in San Mateo. The paint, windows, and utilities box look new.

A Thought for Today

Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:
Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite:
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age:
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before;
'Till tir'd he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

Alexander Pope – Essay on Man, Epistle II

Abstract Art

Took an out-of-focus picture and distorted it using some of the filters and tools in Photoshop Elements, which I'm still trying to learn. Here are the original photo, and the abstract 'art' that resulted from the experiment.

With a bit more work and added colors, I might be able to approximate one of those wonderful photos of the cosmos taken by the Hubble telescope.

Construction

It is dawn outside the parking garage, and already the construction crews are at work, hoisting great steel beams for the structure that will shortly become part of the hospital's new wing.
After my overnight stay, I am ready to return home for a shower and breakfast when the opalescent light and the silhouetted cranes catch my eye. With a 3x telephoto attachment on the old Nikon Coolpix 4500 I carry in the car, I grab this shot in between a parade of cars bearing construction workers and hospital staff to and from work. The night shift is over and the day shift begins.

The economy may be crumbling all across the world, yet here a splendid modern hospital is under construction, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a good metaphor that all will soon be right again.

Ghena Plays - Chopin Nocturne F Sharp, Op 15 No 2

More music for relaxation

Lawn Bowling

Here's a short 1 minute video of some friends at the San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club in Golden Gate Park. While the tournament was going on, there was a rock concert nearby that shattered the quiet of the lovely autumn afternoon. So I substituted some music for the horrendous background noise in the video.

Is that a sigh or what?

So. . . . I've refrained from commenting on the global financial meltdown, and been just waiting and waiting for some sign of recovery. And it came today.

I'm a cup-half-full kind of guy for the most part, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this Columbus Day surge will signal a steady return of confidence in the economy.

Highland Cathedral

I try to include interesting musical performances on YouTube that visitors to this blog might enjoy. This one, played by the Massed Bands of different countries, is called "Highland Cathedral." It was the tune played by the Hong Kong Police Band at the departure of the last British Governor, Chris Patten, when Hong Kong's sovereignty was returned to China on June 30, 1997. (It still brings tears to my eyes each time I hear it.)

(Allow a minute for the video to load, so that it will play seamlessly.)

We'll Always Have Paris

Okay, okay. So I'll admit it. I'm a sentimentalist. But 'Casablanca' remains my all-time favorite movie.

Bilbao, Spain

This was taken in the city of Bilbao in the Basque country of Northern Spain. Bilbao is today probably better known for its showpiece museum, the modern Guggenheim Bilbao, designed by Canadian-born architect Frank Gehry. The older part of the city, where the cathedral is, still possesses the charm of an earlier period.

The storefront's marble façade has been cleaned of graffiti, though some vestiges remain visible. The store sells things like microscopes, telescopes, and other devices of an optical nature, and accepts VISA and American Express as well as Eurocards.

The young woman employee busily wielding a mop at the entrance has begun her workday early, having just opened the glass doors. The man with a folded newspaper in his right hand appears to be waiting for someone or something. Or perhaps he is just standing there because he has nothing else to do.

The building is a modern one, but the wood panels on the second floor are badly weathered, displaying an underlay of shabby plywood. The second floor appears to be occupied by a business office of some kind. Reflected in the windowpanes are the buildings across the street, of which one is the cathedral, whose enormous Gothic rose window can be seen.

Music of the Andes

This is an original arrangement of a Bolivian song by a talented young musician. Sit back and enjoy.