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Hello my friends
I'm very happy you are visiting!

October 24 to October 30 2021

Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, October 24, 2021
through
Saturday, October 30, 2021 

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It’s Saturday, October 30, 2021
Welcome to the 1,265th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

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Lead Picture*

Timeline of generations

Timeline of generations in the Western world as in its Wikipedia article with notable events by CMG Lee. The retirement and life expectancy ages are approximate due to variations in place and time. In the SVG file, click or hover over a generation to highlight it. See references on en:Generation#Western world for sources.

Cmglee - Own work

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Commentary

My efforts to introduce fiber into my diet seems to be working. My movements have become regular again. Today’s goal, to cut my use of stool softeners from 3 capsules to 2.

And I’ve gotten my caloric intake back to normal after a surge due to the mistaken notion that I could eat as much as I wanted as long as it had fiber. The single biggest impact on my diet, and very easy, was to throw out my white bread and use only whole wheat breads. I find them more delicious than the plain white that’s been stripped of much of wheat’s value to us.

I am tinkering now with red lentil pasta and whole wheat pizza. Perhaps I won’t accept these as easily as the bread. More to come.

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Reading and Writing
My writing is proceeding apace. Sometimes to the detriment of other noble tasks.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things,
that men of intemperate minds cannot be free.
Their passions forge their fetters.”
― Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly

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Dinner/Food/Recipes

I had Bouillabaisse on Thursday night. One difference from my past meals of the same was that for this dinner I cut down on the fish and fish broth portions, supplementing the meal with fruit.
Goal is eating more fiber and so less of other foods.

 

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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Gardner Courtyard
A lunch date took me back there.

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Short Essay*
Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years, with the generation typically being defined as people born from 1981 to 1996. Most millennials are the children of baby boomers and early Gen Xers; Millennials are often the parents of Generation Alpha.

Across the globe, young people have postponed marriage. Millennials were born at a time of declining fertility rates around the world, and are having fewer children than their predecessors. Those in developing nations will continue to constitute the bulk of global population growth. In the developed world, young people of the 2010s were less inclined to have sexual intercourse compared to their predecessors when they were at the same age. In the West, they are less likely to be religious than their predecessors, but they may identify as spiritual.

Millennials have been described as the first global generation and the first generation that grew up in the Internet age. The generation is generally marked by elevated usage of and familiarity with the Internet, mobile devices, and social media, which is why they are sometimes termed digital natives. Between the 1990s and the 2010s, people from the developing world became increasingly well educated, a factor that boosted economic growth in these countries. Millennials across the world have suffered significant economic disruption since starting their working lives; many faced high levels of youth unemployment during their early years in the labor market in the wake of the Great Recession, and suffered another recession a decade later due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to
domcapossela@hotmail.com

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It’s Friday, October 29, 2021
Welcome to the 1,264th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

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Lead Picture*

Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra in Capitol Studios, circa October 1957, during the recording of Come Fly with Me. A cropped version of the photograph was published on page 15 of the November 28, 1957, issue of the jazz magazine DownBeat (Vol. 24, No. 24). The accompanying story, titled "Sinatra: He's Frank" and written by John Tynan, detailed the entertainer's preparations before the premiere of the second Frank Sinatra Show (1957–58) on ABC. In 1959, United Artists distributed the photograph as a "keybook" publicity photo.

Photograph by Capitol Records, per a credit found in the 1959 edition of the International Celebrity Register at page 696. No known source credits an individual photographer. - *Original source: DownBeat (November 28, 1957), page 15, appears to be the earliest publication. More of the photograph was shown in the 1959 publicity version. See "other versions" below. Immediate source: Scan via a tweet posted by The Hollywood Reporter on January 19, 2018. Cropped to include only the portions of the photograph disclosed by the "keybook" version. Retouched by uploader.

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Commentary

My fascination with fiber has led me to this: I’m going to use the remaining Bouillabaisse in my freezer for Thursday night’s dinner. I need to buy some fish to supplement the mostly-broth that’s in the tub. The change: I’m buying 50% less of fish than normal. I will supplement my meal with a leafy veg or a piece of fruit: increase fiber; vary diet.

In desperate need to satisfy a desire for turkey, I ordered a Butterball turkey. I do not recommend it to anyone and will avoid it in the future. The bird is loaded with unwanted, unnatural crap.

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Reading and Writing
I am writing from page 75 to page 160. This is to the end of Part Two which I hope to finish, I will finish by Thanksgiving. In my first run through I’m laying down the paragraphs. The story and the characters take my full attention. To the detriment of minute edits but also of more substantial ones. So it will be about ten days before anyone sees these pages. And then I’ll have most important edits to make. Then it will go out to some beta readers who will send my their reactions. More changes, and then out for a final editing.

While this is all going on, I will be working on Part Three of four. Part Three will be done by Christmas.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Okay you guys, pair up in threes!”
― Yogi Berra

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Dinner/Food/Recipes

Wednesday night I had a second Roast Turkey dinner. It was very good.

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Short Essay*
Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor who is generally perceived as one of the greatest musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold an estimated 150 million records worldwide.

Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra was greatly influenced by the intimate, easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby and began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". Sinatra released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. However, by the early 1950s, his professional career had stalled and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of the film From Here to Eternity, his performance subsequently earning him an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra then released several critically lauded albums, some of which are retrospectively noted as being among the first "concept albums", including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958), No One Cares (1959), and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).

Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective album September of My Years and starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968's Francis A. & Edward K. with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later. He recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and released "New York, New York" in 1980. Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until shortly before his death in 1998.

 Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he frequently played detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Sinatra was investigated by the FBI for his alleged relationship with the Mafia.

 While Sinatra never learned how to read music, he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music. A perfectionist, renowned for his dress sense and performing presence, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname "Ol' Blue Eyes". Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He later married Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976. Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people. After Sinatra's death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century", and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.

* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to
domcapossela@hotmail.com

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It’s Thursday, October 28, 2021
Welcome to the 1,263rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

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Lead Picture*

Mott the Hoople

c. 1974

Columbia Records - Billboard, page 5, 29 June 1974

Trade ad for Mott the Hoople's single "Roll Away The Stone". To better adapt it to his respective Wikipedia article, the ad was cropped and cleaned in a graphics editing program. The original can be viewed at the source below.

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Commentary

We’re in a good place re: the Covid wars. Hope the strong trend continues.

And a great win for Tesla, gaining a contract from Hertz to replace 20% of their entire fleet with the Tesla electrics. The largest single order for electric cars in history. The contract will be completed at the end of 2022. Good for our earth.

You Tube Watch: Recently watched Tamika Derrick Mallory, part of the leadership of The Women’s March on Washington. I watched two appearances and in both she was self-possessed and, although not charismatic, she is certainly an attractive leader.

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Reading and Writing
My writing continues apace. Have set Thanksgiving as the ‘shoot for’ date to complete Part Two of four.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, —
in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—
in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—
in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.

Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
~Edmund Burke,
Letter to a Member of the National Assembly

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Dinner/Food/Recipes

Tuesday night I ate a small roasted chicken club with whole wheat bread.
To begin the meal I had a bowl of chicken soup with fregula pasta from Sardinia. The pasta is whole wheat and helps with my fiber issue.

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Short Essay*
Glam rock is a style of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s performed by musicians who wore outrageous costumes, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diverse sources across music and throwaway pop culture, ranging from bubblegum pop and 1950s rock and roll to cabaret, science fiction, and complex art rock. The flamboyant clothing and visual styles of performers were often camp or androgynous, and have been described as playing with other gender roles. Glitter rock was a more extreme version of glam.

The UK charts were inundated with glam rock acts from 1971 to 1975. The March 1971 appearance of T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan on the BBC's music show Top of the Pops, wearing glitter and satins, is often cited as the beginning of the movement. Other British glam rock artists include David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Sweet, Slade, Mud, Roxy Music and Gary Glitter. Those not central to the genre, such as Elton John, Rod Stewart and Freddie Mercury of Queen, also adopted glam styles.

In the United States the scene was much less prevalent, with Alice Cooper and Lou Reed the only American artists to score a hit.Other American glam artists include New York Dolls, Sparks, Suzi Quatro, Iggy Pop and Jobriath. It declined after the mid-1970s, but influenced other musical genres including punk rock, glam metal, New Romantic, deathrock and gothic rock.

Glam rock can be seen as a fashion as well as musical subgenre. Glam artists rejected the revolutionary rhetoric of the late 1960s rock scene, instead glorifying decadence, superficiality, and the simple structures of earlier pop music. In response to these characteristics, scholars such as I.Taylor and D. Wall characterized Glam rock as "offensive, commercial, and cultural emasculation".

 

Artists drew on such musical influences as bubblegum pop, the brash guitar riffs of hard rock, stomping rhythms, and 1950s rock and roll, filtering them through the recording innovations of the late 1960s. Ultimately it became very diverse, varying between the simple rock and roll revivalism of figures like Alvin Stardust to the complex art pop of Roxy Music. In its beginning, however, it was a youth-oriented reaction to the creeping dominance of progressive rock and concept albums – what Bomp! called the "overall denim dullness" of "a deadly boring, prematurely matured music scene".

 

Visually it was a mesh of various styles, ranging from 1930s Hollywood glamour, through 1950s pin-up sex appeal, pre-war cabaret theatrics, Victorian literary and symbolist styles, science fiction, to ancient and occult mysticism and mythology; manifesting itself in outrageous clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots. Glam is most noted for its sexual and gender ambiguity and representations of androgyny, beside extensive use of theatrics.

 

It was prefigured by the flamboyant English composer Noël Coward, especially his 1931 song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", with music writer Daryl Easlea stating, "Noël Coward's influence on people like Bowie, Roxy Music and Cockney Rebel was absolutely immense. It suggested style, artifice and surface were equally as important as depth and substance. Time magazine noted Coward's 'sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise'. It reads like a glam manifesto." Showmanship and gender identity manipulation acts included the Cockettes and Alice Cooper, the latter of which combined glam with shock rock.

*
The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to
domcapossela@hotmail.com

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It’s Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Welcome to the 1,262nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

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Lead Picture*

Andie MacDowell

Andie MacDowell au festival de Cannes
Georges Biard

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Commentary

Storm on Tuesday promises me more writing time.

One of the things I noticed about the fiber count is that dairy and red meat, two of my favorite food groups, have very little fiber. So in planning my diet, I must learn to pass more readily on foodstuffs from these groups. That’ll be an improvement in my dietary habits.

Time spent on You Tube.
On Sunday I listened/watched Donna Tartt (the Goldfinch, etc) and Amor Towle (Gentleman in Moscow, etc). They were terrific.
My plan is to watch some Women’s View.
I also recently watched Winona Ryder (and a great supporting cast) in Little Women.

And kudos to Andie MacDowell for her roles in Little Women, in which she plays a girl, and Maid, in which she plays a grandmother, two movies I saw back to back.

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Reading and Writing
For three days this week the pages of my manuscript flew past.
It’s exciting. 
Think the time I spent on Part One, going over and over it, editing, restructuring, beta testing, was well worth it. I am correcting things in Part Two that I wouldn’t have seen a month ago.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.
~Yogi Berra

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Mail and other Conversation

We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domacapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

This from Colleen G of Room to Write:

Hey Dom,

Glad to read that other people thought you and the book are a match made in words:)

Reading about your love of bread now -- I have to forward a link for a show I saw just yesterday that I thoroughly enjoyed and thought you would really love that was on PBS. The series is called Tastemakers and it spotlights various makers . . . yesterday's a miller in Austin and if you are interested in the anatomy of wheat and all the various ways it is used--especially for bread--check it out. You'll enjoy this: 

https://www.watchtastemakers.com/203-barton-springs-mill

Happy watching and reading. Great rainy week for writing and reading:)

Cheers,

Colleen

Blog meister responds: Thanks, my dear.


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Dinner/Food/Recipes

Monday night I pulled Chicken Soup out of the freezer.
Has some good fiber in the vegetables and
in the use of fregula pasta from Sardinia.

 

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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Summer still life with lobster and fern

 


MacDowell starred in Groundhog Day (1993), Short Cuts (1993), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Michael (1996), and Multiplicity (1996). She had roles in a number of less successful films, including The End of Violence (1997), The Muse (1999), and Town & Country (2001). She later went on to star in a number of independent films, and to play supporting parts in movies such as Beauty Shop (2005), Footloose (2011), and Magic Mike XXL (2015). She received critical acclaim for the 2017 drama film Love After Love, and starred in the film Ready or Not (2019).

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Short Essay*
Rosalie Anderson MacDowell (born April 21, 1958) is an American actress and fashion model. She made her film debut in 1984's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, before receiving critical acclaim for her role in Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), for which she won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. She also received Golden Globe nominations for her performances in Green Card (1990) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

MacDowell has modeled for Calvin Klein and has been a spokeswoman for L'Oréal since 1986, celebrating thirty years with the company in 2016.

In the drama, ‘Maid’, Margaret Qualley, Andie’s daughter IRL, plays Alex.
In the same drama series, Andie MacDowell portrays Alex's undiagnosed bipolar and absent mother, Paula.
When production began casting for the show, Margaret Qualley, Andie’s IRL daughter and the lead in the series, knew how important this story would be for her mother, so she pleaded for Andie to join. In an exclusive interview with Collider, Andie spoke about Margaret's desire to act alongside her mother.

 

Andie said: "[Margaret] knew that I’ve had personal experiences with mental illness because my mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia right after I was born and had shock treatments, and then came home to be really left alone." She added, "So, I grew up in this really crazy environment, and Margaret knew that. She was like, 'Oh, my God, I know who’s perfect for this. She can do this.'"

 

The inspiration behind Andie's performance is heartbreaking, but at least it connects her with her late mother once again.

All 10 episodes of Maid are now streaming exclusively on Netflix.

*
The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to
domacapossela@hotmail.com


 

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It’s Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Welcome to the 1,261st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

 

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Lead Picture*

Amor Towle

Towles in 2018
librairie mollat - Youtube
Amor Towles (2018)

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Commentary

My dishwasher is on the fritz.
Have to wait a week for a repair to come out.
Meanwhile, I wash everything by hand.
You never know where your next fun is coming from.

Today, for my fiber improved breakfast, I had whole wheat toast and honeydew melon.
Realizing how little attention I paid to fiber in my diet, relying instead on fiber pills and stool softeners.
I’m hoping this new realization becomes part of my routine.

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Reading and Writing
I am into Part Two of my manuscript. It’s going much faster than the first part. What I expected. I should finish in 5 weeks.
Sunday was a particularly explosive day. I couldn’t be more than five minutes away from my laptop before I needed to write. Love it.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.
~Yogi Berra

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Mail and other Conversation

We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

Several bloggers have mentioned that the protagonist of A Gentleman in Moscow reminds them of me.

Blog meister responds: That is sweet and kind. Thank you.

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Dinner/Food/Recipes

Sunday night dinner I enjoyed another meal of roast chicken.
Delicious again.
For fiber, I had broccoli and peas and sardo pasta.

 

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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Toni and Dom at their wedding. August 31, 1963
Q. How did I snag such a beauty?

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Short Essay*
Amor Towles (born 1964) is an American novelist. He is best known for his bestselling novels Rules of Civility (2011) and A Gentleman in Moscow (2016), and The Lincoln Highway (2021).

Early life and education

Towles was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale College and received an M.A. in English from Stanford University, where he was a Scowcroft Fellow. When Towles was 10 years old, he threw a bottle with a message into the Atlantic Ocean. Several weeks later, he received a letter from Harrison Salisbury, who was then the managing editor of The New York Times. Towles and Salisbury corresponded for many years afterward.

Career

After graduating from Yale University, Towles was set to teach in China on a two-year fellowship from the Yale China Association. However, this was abruptly canceled due to the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

From 1991–2012, he worked as an investment banker and director of research at Select Equity Group in New York.

When Towles was a younger man, he credited Peter Matthiessen, renowned nature writer, novelist and one of the founders of The Paris Review, as the primary inspiration for writing novels. Towles' first novel, Rules of Civility, was successful beyond his expectations, so much so that the proceeds from the book afforded him the luxury of retirement from investment banking and the opportunity to pursue writing full-time. His second novel A Gentleman in Moscow was a finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize for Fiction. It was also longlisted for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award. Towles' third novel, The Lincoln Highway, was published on October 5, 2021.

*
The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to
domcapossela@hotmail.com

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It’s Monday, October 25, 2021
Welcome to the 1,260th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

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Lead Picture*

Wheat kernel

compartments and macronutrients

Wheat-kernel_nutrition.svg: Jkwchui derivative work: Jon C (talk) - Wheat-kernel_nutrition.svg

A wheat kernel and its nutritional value. Data sources Illustration and composition of wheat kernel is based on (and simplified from) Berghoff (1998), cited by muehlenchemie, as well as other sources on the internet. Nutritional value: Endosperm Germ Bran Berghoff W, 1998. Längsschnitt durch ein Getreidekorn. aid infodienst Verbraucherschutz Ernährung, Bonn.


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Commentary

I’m in the mood to jump the gun on Thanksgiving. So I walked to Star market. Their offer was a 15 pounder. The price was right: 1.29 per pound. But you also got sugar, 9.5% water, stock, additives. Horrid. I passed. Whole Foods only had turkey breast. Roche Bros only had ground turkey. Savenor’s had only one package of turkey. It contained two very small turkey drumsticks. I’d buy those while waiting for a whole turkey. But the price. The package weighed slightly more than a pound and the price? $26.00. Are you kidding me? Is this a sign of things to come?

I know I’ve very recently spoken of it, but I am in love with whole wheat bread,
Am eating it every day, trying to be mindful of the calories.
But somehow it’s renewed my focus on my diet. I have stayed closer to my 16/8 rhythm, have dedicated my first meal entirely to considerations of fiber: broccoli rabe one day; Lentil soup another; fruit and a bit o cheese for another, and have watched the size of my dinner.
The result has been a hopeful weigh-in.
Let’s see how long this love affair lasts.

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Reading and Writing
Part one (of four parts) has gone off to my editor.
Before she gets back to me, I’ll be a third of the way through the second part.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free.
If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”
― Edmund Burke

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Mail and other Conversation

We love getting mail, email, or texts.

Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192

Can’t get over the chord that Colleen G struck with her recommendation of A Gentleman in Moscow for my next read. The corroborating emails keep coming in.

Blog meister responds: What’s to say. I agree.


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Dinner/Food/Recipes

Saturday night I had a slow-roasted roasted chicken.
It was wonderful.
Why has it taken me so long to roast a bird?

 

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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Who owns the past
On the Boston Common, a new exhibit consists of lit signage set on the ground asking important questions. Might be 25 to 30 such squares, including the military, museums, schools, etc

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Short Essay*
Bran, also known as miller's bran, is the hard outer layers of cereal grain. It consists of the combined aleurone and pericarp. Corn (maize) bran also includes the pedicel (tip cap). Along with germ, it is an integral part of whole grains, and is often produced as a byproduct of milling in the production of refined grains.

Bran is present in cereal grain, including rice, corn (maize), wheat, oats, barley, rye and millet. Bran is not the same as chaff, which is a coarser scaly material surrounding the grain but not forming part of the grain itself, and which is indigestible to humans.

Bran is particularly rich in dietary fiber and essential fatty acids and contains significant quantities of starch, protein, vitamins, and dietary minerals. It is also a source of phytic acid, an antinutrient that prevents nutrient absorption.

The high oil content of bran makes it subject to rancidification, one of the reasons that it is often separated from the grain before storage or further processing. Bran is often heat-treated to increase its longevity.

*
The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to
domcapossela@hotmail.com
 

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It’s Sunday, October 24, 2021
Welcome to the 1,259th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com

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Lead Picture*

Peter Scolari

Star of Bosom Buddies. NYC. June 2016.
Greg2600 - Peter Scolari


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Commentary

Not a good night for Boston Sports: the Celtics and the Red Sox both lose badly.
And the Sox’ season comes to an end.

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Reading and Writing
I’m working on the ending of the manuscript because it permeates the entire story.
And I’ve just had a breakthrough.
I’m torn between writing this segment of the blog post and working on the breakthrough.
I wrote this, now I’ll get back to my main work.


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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.”
― Yogi Berra

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Mail and other Conversation

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This from Sally C, responding to an ongoing discussion of eating healthy.

Dear Dom.

Howard D. has a lot of good ideas here, regarding diet.  I could counter him about the benefits of coconut oil (from current studies, rather than those from decades ago warning us against the stuff), but won't get into it here, other than to say that my consumption of one tablespoon a day has eliminated the cracking of and subsequent bleeding of my finger tips (painful!), which began to happen to me three or four years ago, and it's a phenomenal sun block (applied externally). I use virgin (unprocessed/cold-pressed) coconut oil.  Refined coconut oil does not provide these benefits.

With regards to bread storage, he is absolutely right about not refrigerating bread.  Refrigeration toughens the gluten.  That's why people invented bread boxes, to keep their bread in the dark.  Light encourages mold growth.  I had been keeping my bread at room temperature in a black plastic grocery bag (like what liquor stores use to obscure the customer's purchases, but finally this summer, I decided to get a real bread box, and found one online big enough for three loaves, a thin, enameled steel one.  I'm quite happy with it.  (I did find this summer, which is the second dampest on record, that even in the bread box, my bread got moldy sooner than usual. That problem will lighten up as we move into the drier winter season.)

Also, there is a lot out there now about the nutritive value of breads made with sprouted grains, which reduces the gluten factor considerably, important for the carb/blood sugar watchers.  Some of these available on the market are pretty good; others are pretty grim (like eating Raw Bits, the all-natural fictitious cereal advertised on A Prairie Home Companion).  If you can't get to an artisanal bakery for "real" bread, some of the grocery stores now carry Dave's Killer Bread (DKB), which has several organic varieties, including hamburger rolls.  These have a good texture, the most like regular bread that I've found.  This brand elevates Phillip's blood sugars much less than non-grainy breads, artisan or not.  And Food For Life's Ezekiel 4:9 varieties, all sprouted, are pretty good, some denser and drier than others.  Unless you eat them within a week, however, they will mold fairly soon, so the freezer is a good measure to preserve them, pulling out a few slices at a time for daily consumption.

Guess that's all I have to say today about that.  Looks like it's plenty!

Sally

Blog meister responds: I will share a thought on bread. I use Iggy’s whole wheat loaf as a sandwich bread. The store will slice it if you ask. I refrigerate the bread and I take out one or two slices at a time and toast them. Perfect and very easy. The bread keeps for two weeks, easily. Contrary to popular food writing.

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Dinner/Food/Recipes

Friday night I shared a plate of lentil soup with my cousin Lauren. We also had a bratwurst.
And a piece of Whole wheat bread from Eataly which was very good.

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Short Essay*
Peter Thomas Scolari (September 12, 1955 – October 22, 2021) was an American actor, best known for his roles as Michael Harris on Newhart (1984–1990) and Henry Desmond in Bosom Buddies (1980–1982). Scolari received three Emmy nominations for his work on Newhart and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his recurring role as Tad Horvath on Girls in 2016.

Scolari was born in New Rochelle, New York, on September 12, 1955. He described his father as an abusive, "rageful man", and his mother as an alcoholic, and has said that their marriage was tumultuous. "They stayed together for the kids and also because they were hopelessly in love with each other, but they were totally incompatible," he said in an interview with the Toronto Star.

Scolari's first ongoing role was in his first short-lived 1980 sitcom Goodtime Girls, as the juggling neighbor of the title characters. He was then cast co-starring with then-unknown Tom Hanks in another sitcom, Bosom Buddies, as one of two creative professionals who disguise themselves as women to get an affordable apartment in a women's-only residence. After Bosom Buddies was cancelled in 1982 and still struggling as an actor, Scolari joined the cast of Newhart opposite Bob Newhart in 1984, where he played Michael Harris, the yuppie local TV producer, until the series' conclusion in 1990.

Following central roles in the unsuccessful series Family Album and Dweebs, Scolari spent three seasons playing inventor Wayne Szalinski, a role originated on film by Rick Moranis, in the TV adaptation of the Disney film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. He later had a recurring role as the father of Lena Dunham's character on HBO's Girls, for which he won an Emmy in 2016. He also portrayed Gotham City’s corrupt police commissioner, Gillian B. Loeb, in Fox’s superhero crime drama Gotham.

 Scolari appeared on Broadway in Wicked, Sly Fox, Hairspray,[4] and Lucky Guy, which reunited him with his Bosom Buddies co-star Tom Hanks. Scolari also appeared Off-Broadway in Old Man Joseph and His Family, The Exonerated, In the Wings, The Music Man, and White's Lies.

 In 1996, Scolari starred in a version of the stage musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off produced for the A&E television network.

 In 2014, Scolari portrayed Yogi Berra in Bronx Bombers. His wife Tracy Shayne played Berra's wife Carmen. Subsequently, he played the part of the Wizard of Oz in the Broadway musical Wicked.

 He was married to Debra Steagal, and later to actress Cathy Trien, with whom he had two children. He married long-time girlfriend Tracy Shayne in June 2013.

 A 2014 episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now? brought up Scolari's substance abuse and his struggle with bipolar disorder.

 Scolari died from leukemia in Manhattan on October 22, 2021, at age 66. He had been diagnosed with the disease two years earlier.

 Scolari was an avid juggler and occasionally showcased his talents on television like in the 1982 Circus of the Stars and on talk show appearances.


*The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries. *

**Community Pictures with Captions are sent in by our followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com

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Community Photos**
Turkey at home

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