Blue Moon, You Know What I Am Here For

The Last Blue Moon* of 2012 Until 2015
Date and Time of Picture: 31 August 2012; 20:38:38 PDT
... to take your picture as an object of affection for the Rodgers & Hart ballad.

*A rare two full moons in a month.

Johnny Mann's Birthday

Johnny Mann
composer, arranger, and choral conductor
born: 30 August 1928
The MP3 below expired on 09-07-2012.
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The Johnny Mann Singers (1967)
- This Is My Song (Chaplin)

A Blogger Notice

I had not been paying attention to the number of posts made over the years, until recently. Yesterday when I signed on to the Blogger app, this line in small print caught my eye. It read as follows:

"1,000 Posts, last published on Aug 28, 2012"

Swiftly Flow the Days

28 August

Dear S:

I was agreeably pleased at getting an e-letter from you; it arrived on my birthday no less! The last time I saw Eli, he was being cuddled in the warmth and security of his mater. In the sentiments of Tevye, "sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days...". Alas, the ever flowing tide of time does not tarry in the circle of life. Generations go and generations grow.

It's heartwarming to read Eli trundled his first exploratory steps with the aid of an elder's walker. Truly, only Eli's loved ones could have comprehended with affections his mirth. Perhaps at his next milestone you could send a picture as well.

Jesus has a special interest in children, as they are precious to Him. My supplication is your family and others in Eli's circle shall, with the steadfastness of prayer, love, and Christian teaching, stand by him when life's happiness and sorrows to come.

Our plead and thanksgiving rest on His grace. Give my love to all.

L'

p.s.
A friend from Alaska sent me a natal day greeting with a witty reminder, "the hairs on my head are all numbered". It is ordained should my hairs fall as the sands of time. To have my head shaved in these listless summer days is an inviting thought. Such thoughts I could bare with ease. Would I then as Li Bai reposing under a leafy canopy:

Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head.

Rebecca Clarke Birthday Anniversary

Rebecca Clarke
English Neo-Classical composer and violist
Best known for her chamber music works
(27 August 1886 - 13 October 1979)

The MP3 below expired on 08-29-2012.
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Daniel Hope, violin (pizzicato)
and Sophia Raham, piano (2007)
- Chinese Puzzle (Clarke)

Note: Eric Coates, English light music composer, was also born on 27 August 1886, and coincidentally, a violist as Rebecca Clarke.

Precursor of the Democratic Party

He Ain't Dan Quayle That's Why

The liberal mainstream media don't harp on our sitting President when he makes gaffes. He'd wanted to be the President of a 57-United States. Instead, he got elected as president of these 50 states only. And recently, on 22 August, he misspelled "Ohio" while campaigning in that state. These glaring faux pas committed by one who had been the president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review and a learned Constitutional Law professor. The liberals shrugged off these embarrassments. Some even went as far as calling the real photo of Obama misspelling "Ohio" a digitized lie (cf. Washington Post's apology).

The staunch defense of this liberal's poster-child President boils down to this: Because Obama ain't Dan Quayle (who being white and conservative). He is the anointed one of the Democratic Party and its apparatchiks. This President is viscerating America, transforming and folding it into the morass of EU's democratic socialism. Worst yet, how does a full fledged People's Republic of the United States sound?

By the waters of the Potamac,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered the United States of America.

A Beautiful Evening on Debussy's Birthday

Claude Debussy
French Neo-Classical composer
His 150 birthday today!
(22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918)
The MP3 below expired on 08-26-2012.
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- Beau Soir (Debussy)
~Debussy wrote this piece to the setting of Bourget's poem,
"Beau Soir" (Beautiful Evening).

Beau Soir

Lorsque au soleil couchant les rivières sont roses.
Et qu'un tiède frisson court sur les champs de blé,
Un conseil d'être heureux semble sortir des choses
Et monter vers le coeur troublé;
Un conseil de goûter le charme d'être au monde
Cependant qu'on est jeune et que le soir est beau,
Car nous nous en allons, comme s'en va cette onde:
Elle à la mer, - Nous au tombeau!

--"Les aveux, En voyage, VII-Beau Soir" de Paul Bourget

Excuses-in-Chief

Memo to Mitt Romney

To: Mitt Romney
Subject: Releasing Your Tax Records
Date: 20 August 2012

If President Obama continues to insist on seeing your income tax records, do it on one condition. That is, if said president would also release his real and authentic US birth certificate.

There Be None of Beauty's Daughters

"There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like Thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charméd ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming..."
-- Lord Byron

The MP3 below expired on 08-21-2012.
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Beegie Adair, jazz piano trio (2012)
- What a Wonderful World (Thiel & Weiss)
Enjoy the summer!

Finished Garage Cabinetry

After two months toiling in the sweltering summer heat - with temperature hovering at or above 100°F/38°C - the garage remodeling project has come to an end. With the upper and lower cabinet trees secured in place, the last task to do was the work bench. In all, this project has been very satisfactory. More important, I now have more space to fit two Toyota 4Runner SUVs, figuratively speaking, with clearance enough to open the lower cabinet doors.

With this remodeling project, I discarded a truck load of unwanted things and books. Now I can, again with resignation, put all the "I want to save it for now" stuff in the upper 21 cabinets.

Cécile Chaminade Birthday Anniversary

Cécile Louise Stéphanie Chaminade
French-born pianist and composer
(8 August 1857 - 13 April 1944)
The MP3 below expired on 08-12-2012.
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Stephen Hough, piano (1999)
- Pierrette: Air de ballet (Chaminade)

Une fois hors de la nature, jamais je n'emprunterai
Mon apparence physique à une chose naturelle
Je revêtirai plutôt une forme comme celle que les orfèvres grecs font sourdre
De l'or martelé ou de l'émaillure d'or
Pour faire s'éveiller un Empereur ensommeillé
Ou je me saisrai d'un rameau d'or pour chanter
Aux Seigneurs et aux Dames de Byzance
Ce qui s'est passé, se passe ou arrivera

-- "Sailing to Byzantium" de W.B. Yeats

Amazon Is Not Membership Friendly

I just got off chat with an Amazon representative about the company has intentionally removed the "Sign Out" button from the user's account. Short of closing the desktop browser, one has to lie as being "Not (my account name), Click Here" to sign out. The representative more or less said that was the case. It's being done for account security reasons. Horsefeathers!

Amazon's specious argument for effecting this indirect and confusing way for a customer to exit his account is a non sequitur. What is more secure for a desktop user to sign off his account web page than by him having an easy and direct access to the "Log Out" button?

To wit, General McAuliffe: "Nuts!"

An important side note:

I don't even bother with the Kindle Fire built-in Amazon store app. There are no provisions whatsoever in this tablet app to sign off the Amazon account by lying or otherwise. One has to go to the Kindle Fire device setting to clear the app's data and to force stop it from running to log out of the account.

Vote for the American

Another Sign of the Times

He Ain't Government Motors

A Sign of the Times