September Morn (Unburied Nuts)

Squirrels love to bury their precious nuts so as to uncover them later to enjoy at leisure. In the same way, this blog, from time to time, brings an old post back for another short period in the sun. This particular nut first saw light of day in 2007.  My goodness – that’s a decade ago!  Well, as September is always special to me for a number of reasons, here it is uncovered again……with a couple of editorial changes.

But first, let’s have some mood music by Neil Diamond who apparently also loves September morns….

It is the beginning of September and I noted a number of my blogging friends from the Northern Hemisphere are lamenting or at least marking the passing of summer. However, a few like me are ready to welcome September and the beginning of autumn. September has always been a special month for me. It seems like some of my happiest moments have been tied to this month or at least this season. In celebration of September, I offer this posting on the theme of “September Morn”. Below is a famous painting by Paul Chabas and the music is by Neil Diamond.

“September Morn” by Paul Chabas

 

Quoted from Bonnie Bull
“On a September morning in 1912, French painter Paul Chabas finished the painting he had been working on for three consecutive summers. Thus completed, it was aptly titled “Matinee de Septembre” (September Morn). As was typical of his style, the painting was of young maiden posed nude in a natural setting. This time the icy morning waters of Lake Annecy in Upper Savoy formed the natural setting and the maiden was a local peasant girl. The head, however, had been painted from the sketch of a young American girl, Julie Phillips (later Mrs. Thompson), which he had made while she and her mother were sitting in a Paris cafe. Apparently, he had found her profile to be exactly what he was looking for.

(LGS notes: Could this be a pre-Photoshop example of pasting someone’s head on to someone else’s naked body?)

The completed painting was then sent off to the Paris Salon of 1912 to be exhibited. Although the painting won Mr. Chabas the Medal of Honor, it caused no flurry of attention. Hoping to find a buyer, the artist shipped the painting overseas to an American gallery. It was here in America that the painting was destined to receive undreamed of publicity and popularity.

One day in May of 1913, displayed in the window of a Manhattan art gallery, it caught the eye of Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Horrified by what he saw, he stormed into the store, flashed his badge, and roared: “There’s too little morn and too much maid. Take her out!” The gallery manager, however, refused to do so.

The ensuing controversy was given wide publicity by the press and the painting was simultaneously denounced and defended across the entire country. Meanwhile, curious crowds filled the street outside the shop straining to see the painting that caused such a stir.

Soon enterprising entrepreneurs were reproducing September Morn on everything conceivable: calendars, postcards, candy boxes, cigar bands, cigarette flannels, pennents, suspenders, bottle openers and more. Purity leagues tried to suppress it. Postcard reproductions were forbidden in the mails. The painting became the object of stock show gags and even inspired an anonymous couplet that swept the country, “Please don’t think I’m bad or bold, but where its deep it’s awful cold.”

(LGS notes: Why, this is like a meme!)

The painting went back to Paul Chabas who sold it to a Russian collector for the ruble equivalent of $10,000. After the Russian Revolution it turned up in Paris in the Gulbenkian Collection. Ultimately the painting was purchased by Philadelphia Main Liner Willaim Coxe Wright and donated to Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum in 1957 after being refused by the Philadelphia Museum of Art because it had no significance in the twentieth century stream of art. It’s estimated market value in 1957 was $30,000. The painting still hangs in the Metropolitan Museum as an example of 20th century French works and reproductions can be purchased in the museum’s gift shop.”

A Halloween Tale

There was a certain small town in Maine which had grown round an old cemetery. As it took a long time to walk round the cemetery if one wanted to go to the opposite side of town, it was not uncommon for late night revelers to take a short cut through the cemetery. Tom worked the late shift at the local coffee shop and normally finished past midnight and would cut across the cemetery to get home.

One autumn night, it was particularly dark and there was some ground fog rolling in from the sea. Tom was making his way across the cemetery but he was finding it difficult to see well in the dark and fog and he kept bumping into gravestones. He was halfway across when he suddenly fell into a deep hole. He was stunned for awhile but as his eyes got accustomed to the dark, he quickly realised he had fallen into a newly dug grave.

He tried jumping and catching the edge of the grave so that he could climb out but the sides of the grave must have been at least eight feet deep and he could not jump that high. He tried doing a running jump but he still could not jump high enough. After trying for about twenty times, he got tired and sat down at the side and prepared to wait till morning when the groundskeeper would most likely find him. Before long, he dozed off.

About an hour later, he was awakened to the sound of drunken singing. It was a late night reveler taking a short cut through the cemetery. However, before Tom could call out, the man fell into the very same hole. From where he sat, he could barely see the man but he could hear the man get up and brush the dirt from his clothes while cursing under his breath. He then heard the man attempt to jump and catch the edge of the grave as he had and he also heard him fall heavily to the ground again.

After hearing the man try a few times and fail, he could tell that the man was beginning to panic. Therefore he reached out and put his hand on the man’s shoulder and said ” You’re not getting out of here tonight.”

The next thing Tom knew, the man screamed, jumped straight up in the air and was gone!

Undead Nuts from October 30th 2006

I wish I had time to do a good post for Halloween which is one date that I look out for. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do so. instead, I have used unholy science to resurrect a dead and buried nut from 2006. Beware…….it stinks!

Monday, October 30, 2006

Spirits of the Season: Fright or Hide

(Pennywise the Clown from Steven King’s “It”.)

What thrills you? Gets your adrenaline up, gives you a buzz that lights up our smile and your sense of general well being. In fact it makes you feel like superman. The scientists call it the “fight or flight” response; our bodies are being prepared to fight or to run for our lives. Either way, the adrenaline tones our muscles in anticipation,
our blood rushes oxygen and we feel powerful. For some, they get this high from riding roller coasters and kamikaze rides. Not for me, I just become catatonic – completely rigid, neither capable of fight or flight, not even sound unless you count moans.

However, since it is Halloween, let us consider my other favourite way of getting thrills which is to watch horror movies or read a scary book or listen to a campfire ghost story. I call this the “fright and hide” response. This is where once again the adrenaline courses through the
body, getting the heart beat up and blood rushing but the muscles are not primed to run but to crawl under the blankets and hide. A really powerful invocation of the response is manifested by other symptoms like “tingling in the spine”, “goosebumps” and “chattering teeth”. I love it. I much prefer this than actually risking my life on a roller coaster. Horror stories is just safe entertainment with no real risk of being flung to your deaths from a roller coaster ride. After all, there are no such things as ghosts and monsters………… right? Er, right?

What makes a good horror story? I much prefer good story telling than an over reliance on mutilated bodies. Hence, I discount movies like Halloween and Scream and such slasher movies as body count movies. Most times, a couple of dead bodies can be scarier than a bus load.

Camp fire ghost stories are just great because it makes use of our imaginations which is usually far scarier that special effects. Although, I did not think that the Blair Witch Project was exceptional, it made use of simple things to great effect. Think of the sounds outside the tent, the strange arrangement of twigs, the disappearance of friends. You never see the horror but you get hints of it. Right at the end when you see the man at the corner with his feet not touching the ground; well, you knewthen you had it even though you still did not
see the horror. But you could almost touch it. Or worse, it could touch you. Brrrrr.

Perversion of innocence is another scary tool. This is where you take something sweet and innocent and turn it into evil personified. This worked well in “It.” A clown is turned into a monster with pointed teeth but he still looks like a clown all the way down to his red nose and balloon animals. If you can’t trust a clown,……. Just imagine cuddlying up to Barney and then seeing him transformed into a velociraptor. Now that’s scary. It did not work with “Chucky” because that doll looked like bad news even before he showed his demonic side. Children are also meant to be innocent and that’s why they can be very scary. In “The Ring”, we are actually led to sympathize with the girl, Samara. Oh poor little girl, how she was mistreated by her parents. Later, when we realize that the parents were actually scared of her that we feel the full impact of her evilness. Yikes.

Removing our comfort zones. Some of us have no problems watching movies about
old haunted mansions or about werewolves lose in the Everglades. Why? Because we know that nothing will ever drag us to go to a haunted mansion or camp in the Everglades. It is far away from our comfort zone. Movies on Vampires in Transylvania? No problem since the last I checked, there were no direct flights from the Kingdom of Darkness to our international airport. However, what if the horror came into our house? What if it visits in our dreams even though we are tucked in our own beds? That is the premise that made Nightmare on Elm Street so horrifying (the sequels degenerated to a body count movie). What if hell itself wanted to draw you in through the static of the TV screen as it did in Poltergeist? Yaaaaah!

I think Hollywood horror movies have lost their way of late and have acknowledged that by
copying or reproducing some of the scarier movies from Asia. The Ring, Dark Water and The Grudge are some examples. Even in the case of The Grudge, I would still recommend the Japanese version despite the fact that I am a Sarah Michelle Geller fan.

A few more that I would recommend from Asia include;
a) Shutter (2004; Thailand; The moment the hero finally understands what was happening was truly chilling.)
b) A Tale of Two Sisters (2003, Korean; Is it real or is it imagined the evil that seems to appear?)
c) One Missed Call
(2003, Japanese; Okay, not one of the top ones but I like how they use an everyday item like the handphone to rock us out of our comfort zone).

Happy halloween. Sleep well. Have pleasant dreams and watch out for your teddy bear.

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September Morn

It is the beginning of September and I noted a number of my blogging friends from the Northern Hemisphere are lamenting or at least marking the passing of summer. However, a few like me are ready to welcome September and the beginning of autumn. September has always been a special month for me. It seems like some of my happiest moments have been tied to this month or at least this season. In celebration of September, I offer this posting on the theme of “September Morn”. Below is a famous painting by Paul Chabas and the music is by Neil Diamond.

“September Morn” by Paul Chabas

Quoted from Bonnie Bull
“On a September morning in 1912, French painter Paul Chabas finished the painting he had been working on for three consecutive summers. Thus completed, it was aptly titled “Matinee de Septembre” (September Morn). As was typical of his style, the painting was of young maiden posed nude in a natural setting. This time the icy morning waters of Lake Annecy in Upper Savoy formed the natural setting and the maiden was a local peasant girl. The head, however, had been painted from the sketch of a young American girl, Julie Phillips (later Mrs. Thompson), which he had made while she and her mother were sitting in a Paris cafe. Apparently, he had found her profile to be exactly what he was looking for.

The completed painting was then sent off to the Paris Salon of 1912 to be exhibited. Although the painting won Mr. Chabas the Medal of Honor, it caused no flurry of attention. Hoping to find a buyer, the artist shipped the painting overseas to an American gallery. It was here in America that the painting was destined to receive undreamed of publicity and popularity.

One day in May of 1913, displayed in the window of a Manhattan art gallery, it caught the eye of Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Horrified by what he saw, he stormed into the store, flashed his badge, and roared: “There’s too little morn and too much maid. Take her out!” The gallery manager, however, refused to do so.

The ensuing controversy was given wide publicity by the press and the painting was simultaneously denounced and defended across the entire country. Meanwhile, curious crowds filled the street outside the shop straining to see the painting that caused such a stir.

Soon enterprising entrepreneurs were reproducing September Morn on everything conceivable: calendars, postcards, candy boxes, cigar bands, cigarette flannels, pennents, suspenders, bottle openers and more. Purity leagues tried to suppress it. Postcard reproductions were forbidden in the mails. The painting became the object of stock show gags and even inspired an anonymous couplet that swept the country, “Please don’t think I’m bad or bold, but where its deep it’s awwful cold.”

The painting went back to Paul Chabas who sold it to a Russian collector for the ruble equivalent of $10,000. After the Russian Revolution it turned up in Paris in the Gulbenkian Collection. Ultimately the painting was purchased by Philadelphia Main Liner Willaim Coxe Wright and donated to Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum in 1957 after being refused by the Philadelphia Museum of Art because it had no significance in the twentieth century stream of art. It’s estimated market value in 1957 was $30,000. The painting still hangs in the Metropolitan Museum as an example of 20th century French works and reproductions can be purchased in the museum’s gift shop.”

I had to disable Neil Diamond as he keeps insisting to sing even when visitors are looking at a different post. You can listen to him here.

Spirits of the Season: Fright or Hide

What thrills you? Gets your adrenaline up, gives you a buzz that lights up your smile and your sense of general well being. In fact it makes you feel like superman. The scientists call it the “fight or flight” response; our bodies are being prepared to fight or to run for our lives. Either way, the adrenaline tones our muscles in anticipation, our blood rushes oxygen and we feel powerful. For some, they get this high from riding roller coasters and kamikaze rides. Not for me, I just become catatonic – completely rigid, neither capable of fight or flight, not even sound unless you count moans.

(Pennywise the Clown from Steven King’s “It”.)

However, since it is Halloween, let us consider my other favourite way of getting thrills which is to watch horror movies or read a scary book or listen to a campfire ghost story. I call this the “fright and hide” response. This is where once again the adrenaline courses through the body, getting the heart beat up and blood rushing but the muscles are not primed to run but to crawl under the blankets and hide. A really powerful invocation of the response is manifested by other symptoms like “tingling in the spine”, “goosebumps” and “chattering teeth”. I love it. I much prefer this than actually risking my life on a roller coaster. Horror stories is just safe entertainment with no real risk of being flung to your deaths from a roller coaster ride. After all, there are no such things as ghosts and monsters………… right? Er, right?

What makes a good horror story? I much prefer good story telling than an over reliance on mutilated bodies. Hence, I discount movies like Halloween and Scream and such slasher movies as body count movies. Most times, a couple of dead bodies can be scarier than a bus load.

Camp fire ghost stories are just great because it makes use of our imaginations which is usually far scarier that special effects. Although, I did not think that the Blair Witch Project was exceptional, it made use of simple things to great effect. Think of the sounds outside the tent, the strange arrangement of twigs, the disappearance of friends. You never see the horror but you get hints of it. Right at the end when you see the man at the corner with his feet not touching the ground; well, you knewthen you had it even though you still did not see the horror. But you could almost touch it. Or worse, it could touch you. Brrrrr.

Perversion of innocence is another scary tool. This is where you take something sweet and innocent and turn it into evil personified. This worked well in “It.” A clown is turned into a monster with pointed teeth but he still looks like a clown all the way down to his red nose and balloon animals. If you can’t trust a clown,……. Just imagine cuddlying up to Barney and then seeing him transformed into a velociraptor. Now that’s scary. It did not work with “Chucky” because that doll looked like bad news even before he showed his demonic side. Children are also meant to be innocent and that’s why they can be very scary. In “The Ring”, we are actually led to sympathize with the girl, Samara. Oh poor little girl, how she was mistreated by her parents. Later, when we realize that the parents were actually scared of her that we feel the full impact of her evilness. Yikes.

Removing our comfort zones. Some of us have no problems watching movies about old haunted mansions or about werewolves lose in the Everglades. Why? Because we know that nothing will ever drag us to go to a haunted mansion or camp in the Everglades. It is far away from our comfort zone. Movies on Vampires in Transylvania? No problem since the last I checked, there were no direct flights from the Kingdom of Darkness to our international airport. However, what if the horror came into our house? What if it visits in our dreams even though we are tucked in our own beds? That is the premise that made Nightmare on Elm Street so horrifying (the sequels degenerated to a body count movie). What if hell itself wanted to draw you in through the static of the TV screen as it did in Poltergeist? Yaaaaah!

I think Hollywood horror movies have lost their way of late and have acknowledged that by copying or reproducing some of the scarier movies from Asia. The Ring, Dark Water and The Grudge are some examples. Even in the case of The Grudge, I would still recommend the Japanese version despite the fact that I am a Sarah Michelle Geller fan.

A few more that I would recommend from Asia include;
a) Shutter (2004; Thailand; The moment the hero finally understands what was happening was truly chilling.)
b) A Tale of Two Sisters (2003, Korean; Is it real or is it imagined the evil that seems to appear?)
c) One Missed Call (2003, Japanese; Okay, not one of the top ones but I like how they use an everyday item like the handphone to rock us out of our comfort zone).

Happy halloween. Sleep well. Have pleasant dreams and watch out for your teddy bear.

Did I Kill Him??

As the autumn matured into a pallate of rich golds and reds, our relationship began to follow a familiar routine. He would appear at the window in the morning to remind me to put out some peanuts out for him before I slogged off to University. As I was in a basement apartment, the window placed us equally at eye level. In the evening, if I am back before the sun goes down, he may condescend to an appearance. But if he did show up, he would entertain me with his enchanting little dance. I think I will dedicate one whole posting to his dance skills but that will be later. Yet despite this familiar routine, the rapscallion, was well versed in the skills of entrapment and allurement. Looking cute and constantly engaging interests were the tools of his trade; the easy path to procure delicious edibles.

The fact was, that on the very first day we met, as I sat on the stone steps leading to my little garden, he came and sat on my lap and ate out of my cupped hand. He granted me a glimse of such pastoral pleasure and hinted at intimacy. However, once he knew that I was hooked on him and his Sciuridae brethren, he became aloof again. Throughout that autumn, he would be coy, coming close and then draw back again; staying just a finger’s touch away but racing away if you tried to close the gap. It was infuriating but it kept the relationship from becoming routine and stale. Perhaps there is a lesson here about keeping romance fresh in marraiges and relationships. It kept me looking forward to our encounters and wondering if the next time would be the time we would connect again.

Did I tell you that I am a scientist? Well, for a scientist, I was pretty dumb. My excuse was that I was still at that time studying for my PhD and a) I was too stressed to think; b) PhD = permanent head damage, c) one must be inherently dumb to sign up for more studies and exams and d) all of the above. It was only when all the riotous fall color had begun to fade into grey skies that I had an epiphany……. winter was coming.

With this realisation, I was overwhelmed by worry and guilt. Was I making Spikey a tame squirrel? One that got too used to human handouts and became unable to cope with the harshness of winter. Was I ruining his hibernation cycle? Would he be attracted to come out in the cold for the handouts when he should be hibernating safely? Had I killed him? Riding on a crest of adrenaline, I fumbled through the yellow pages and found the telephone number for the Canadian Nature Federation (today, Nature Canada).

“Hello” said the sweet feminine voice.

“Hello, I have been feeding a squirrel.” Please don’t judge me harshly.

“Yess…. feeding a squirrel?”

“Is that bad?” Don’t hang up! It’s not a crank call.

Well, the patient voice explained to me that in fact squirrels do not hibernate but they live off their store of nuts which could be in caches in the trees or buried in the ground. However, if the squirrel had become too dependent on the feeding, he may not have stored enough. So she advised me to keep feeding through the winter.

“Uh huh, … do not hibernate. Need to keep feeding. Yes Ma’am! I can do that”

I was wiping the perspiration off my forehead when she asked what I was feeding the squirrel. I told her I was feeding Spikey, peanuts but that don’t worry I learnt from a friend who reared dogs that giving animals salted food was bad as it caused them to lose their fur. I was careful not to give salted peanuts. “That’s good” she said,” because squirrels can only eat blanched peanuts as in untreated peanuts, there is a protein that is toxic to squirrels.”

Although I still had perspiration on my forehead, I felt the most awful chill down my whole body. I thanked her and placed the phone back in its cradle. The next few steps to the kitchen seemed to last a lifetime and all the while there was pounding in my ears which seemed to say, “Killer, killer”. I opened the cupboard and took the peanuts out and with my heart in my throat, I looked at the package label and it said …….”blanched unsalted peanuts”.

Whew! I learnt my lesson. Don’t feed wild animals. Its bad for them. Well, the lesson is for you readers because I was hooked. After all, the patient voice had commanded me to feed him through the winter which I did with blanched, unsalted peanuts that you can buy in bulk at the supermarket. And despite, my ignorance, Spikey would live on.