Bailey Alexander

Eurovision Contest 2012 even had Engelbert Humperdinck

Sweden may have won but the The Guardian provided the finest in entertainment; snark style. Sorry to hear Hump came second to last. Oh, and
the Russians brought bakeries...

St. Gabriel satisfies my fetish for flowers.

Living in Prague gives great value. Far better than our last address. Rent is half as much and our place is twice as nice with a gorgeous view. The food selection provides good quality produce and the restaurants are both affordable and consistently good. Yesterday I had to buy more electronics for a current project and was pleased at the price, similar to when buying household sundries which I find to be surprisingly cheap. 

The fact I have a fetish for flowers allows me to save a little less but until I have a garden to call my own, Gabriel gives me a good deal. 

She's a gorgeous gal and owns a store in my hood called St. Gabriel Flowers. I took a foto of her today, always the sweetest smile on her face, funny and very cool. I made sure to 'like' her on facebook.

 

 

 

Gabriel runs a great business and last week I bought a lovely new petunia plant which allows me to pinch off the little flowers, making room for twice as many the following day.

I love Bohemia...

Lola Voronina; A Russian explains how the Pirate Party moves from strength to strength.

The Pirates are committed, cool and very, very focused. Rick Falkvinge found the party, keeping his calendar full of speaking engagements yet the independent members are what moves the fastest growing political party into the future. Fantastic stuff.   

I'm trying to get Falkvinge on Alex Jones and Democracy Now but other movements seem to occupy their time. So many movements, indeed, but inspirational to see how the Pirates move their ideas into action. Entering European Parliament and spreading their message through missionary work, like Kopimism, which just makes me smile. 

And to think she's going to teach me how to make Borscht next week. Life's nice. 

The soap opera that is MAD MEN.

I still think the period represents America's culturally zenith; when we were serious, felt curious about our future and looked forward to growing up.  The characters cover all the bases so well.  

Pete Campbell, unloved since birth and under-appreciated at work has enough venom to last a lifetime and yet he's grateful when a morsel of credit or kindness is thrown his way. He's an earlier version of James Spader without the finesse and that disconcerting brand of self-consciousness. He deserves some sympathy. When Lane initiated the fistfight it was kinda funny but unfair. For those perceiving modern day high finance guys as glorified accountants how could we possibly root for Lane.  

And nice to have Roger back, the Dorothy Parker of the group. Both witty and notorious drinkers, the difference being Parker didn't wish to be Jewish and felt a female was but a curse put on writers living at that time.   

On the contrary Roger relishes and celebrates his waspy background and role of hunter with flair. Perhaps too cavalier but he could care less. He'll wear his fate as long as fedora's are in fashion, which will end soon but then so will the series.  

Guess who came to dinner; The Russians

Last night a couple of women from St. Petersburg showed up at Chez Bay. It was interesting to listen to their perceptions about Putin, their politics and their system. So different from my own experience growing up, yet one of my guests, Lola Voronina has become a good friend and we've ended up in similar worlds.  Odd to think the further east we move the  freer we seem to feel. 

Russians, I find, are cool, tough and refined. A great combo and they tend to complain less than the west. They go about their business, in spite of it all, underneath the radar. 

When living in Paris I didn't know any on a personal level, none came to play at Chez Bay yet apparently they were everywhere.

Fukushima: "Hell no, we won't glow"

"The weight of the world depends on Unit 4 reactor," so they say. Hard to know, like Manuel on Fawlty Towers, I know nothing.

Friends living there post ominous posts on Facebook but its mentally taxing to process potential scenarios. One can only imagine the stress of child bearing mothers, less inclined to grow food in such a potentially toxic environment, becoming activists in their daily regime. As the saying goes, "Hell no, we won't glow." 

Fukushima updates as fate awaits.

Princess Diana; talk about zeitgeist.

Apparently another book's been written about Princess Diana. They'll write about her forever, however, if you were the same age when she arrived on the world stage, it was easy to project our dreams as she took our breath away in a very specific, personal way.   

The feathered hair and that fresh, charming face. A short life and violent death. The details seem to fade away as she remains in that way. Talk about zeitgeist.    

Modern Zeitgeists; parasitic spirit of our time.

“What I say today everybody will say tomorrow, though they will not remember who put it into their heads. Indeed they will be right for I never remember who puts things into my head : it is the Zeitgeist.” –George Bernard Shaw

Modern zeitgeists come in so many forms. Spirits of our time.

Few would argue Matt Drudge is the on-line media king of the muckrakers. Arianna Huffington proved brilliantly you could aggregate everyone else's content and take sole credit. Navigating effortlessly from the right side of politics to the left; the l-r paradigm was made for types like Arianna. 

Now for something completely different: Avec plaisir, the new Première Dame of France: Valerie Trierweiler

So goes Sarko, so goes Carla Bruni. A relief for many. Bruni always struck me as a higher end version of Liz Hurley, the kind that earn celebrity currency through high profile partners. Carla won, then lost, so their game goes.

Warhol's Elvis, Lichtenstein's Sleeping Girl: Whatever the market will bear...

Guardian:

"Andy Warhol's Double Elvis sold for $37m (£23m, while works by Roy Lichtenstein and the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei broke their own records at Sotheby's contemporary art sale.

Lichtenstein's Sleeping Girl, depicting a woman with closed eyes and flowing blond hair, fetched $44.9m on Wednesday. Weiwei's one-tonne, handmade porcelain Sunflower Seeds brought $782,500.

Prague's goddesses

Happiness and expectations

Heard a great talk on TED today on the ever elusive pursuit of Happiness. I agree with the notion its much ado about perspective and the amount of expectations we apply. The talk was served on a full tray of cliche's and yet the cliche's concerning expectations and choice appealed to me. Along my nomadic lifestyle I've often found my expectations decrease just as my level of contentment tends to increase, as if in complete unison. Such are the cycles of my life, so far. 

Its been interesting to meet so many fellow expats in so many countries but more oft than not its depressing. I'm not talking about the ones that live abroad part of the time or have their stuff in storage or teach English to stretch out the experience. I get that and I get they will eventually go back home. I'm talking about the ones that don't, that have lived abroad for a long, long time.

Think Pink...

The age of innocence, before life unfolds and cynicism sets in. It's lovely...

Mad Men: thank god Roger's back.

Mad Men may feel universal to some but rings uniquely American to me. It's like inhaling those moments intrinsic to our past, near and dear to those growing up in the 60's and 70's on either coast. Older than I; perhaps even more.

Those phones, our mannered naivety, so ascendant at that time; our world offering more and more to the masses. You can almost feel season 5 swirling towards the point minimum wage reached its peak, right before the credit bubble slowly overtook the mid 70's, greed became the norm in the 80's and all that jazz. 

This show is pitch perfect, Don's whistling the Beatles, moving forward.

Brands from the past make us pine, characters pitching our cereal or ruffling through drawers full of familiar junk that now feels precious. So familiar and yet so far away, surround sound nostalgia reverberates and bangs about unmercifully in our brains. Pure, painful, instant placebo from our past. 

Reading Anaïs Nin is an awfully romantic exercise...

...what with this 'war on women'. As if it began this past year, newsflash; it was always there.  

Persevere and keep the blinders on ladies, if not, you won't last long in this patriarchal world.

Anaïs Nin; a potent combo of French and Cuban DNA. Living in constant fantasy, in flight yet relied on human reality to get her work published, to get through the day. Relaying a literary style so authentic, discussing her 'bohemian' union with Henry Miller:

I dread going to Spain with Henry because it will mean cafes, streets, whores, streets, cafes and movies. No real enormous or fantastic adventures. Cafes. Just as I am sitting here with Eduardo, drinking vin d'Alsace and watching his minor June-oh, so much smaller-collecting clients.

I want to become a whore but I don't know how it is done. Shall I sit at the Cafe Marignan and let a man with a yellow roadster and a Scotch terrier drive me away? Banal. He, the one I am expecting, must have ears. He may be in Spain.

Where's the left side of this paradigm?

It's been a long time since I caught Sandra Bernhard on stage in New York but her words linger and I can still hear her saying, "Where's Cher! I look here, there, everywhere but no Cher..." We love Cher, a face so uniquely beautiful before she dared to enter and alter it so severely. Still lovable but we grew to miss that lovely face. 

 

 

 

Mad Med and Sherlock; transatlantic take on Woman vs Female.

You can practically hear the English writers sharpening their literary blades at night, arming themselves to wield their wicked wordplay the next day, so cunning. Able to angle their way around any given issue in the loveliest, cutting way conceivable.

Why take their 'national treasure' Stephen Frye. I get why he's beloved and then I read the tweet he sends out to the world while waiting in line to speak at Christopher Hitchens' memorial service. I think his tweet more memorable than an essay written by the deceased. Frye taps away, seemingly giddy, "23rd in line, what a line up..." Apparently 23 literary giants before him, then his turn to wax poetic. He cannot wait. At a memorial.

That tweet, including his comments on women and sex make me think he's not quite as tweedy as he pretends to be. Well, I suppose we're all a bit delusional in our own special way.

And yet this is precisely why we love the English and continue to listen as they instruct us all on how it must be done. BTW, cannot wait for the London Olympics, a formidable management style shall be shown to the world. Of this I'm certain and eagerly await.    

Driving thru Europe; cultures change along with their landscape

Schloss Fucshl is a gorgeous hotel just outside Salzburg, elegant environs, the trout for lunch arrived fresh from the lake.

Sun arrived for lunch then the weather turned foul. We tucked into the 'lodge'; he ordered Apple Strudel and coffee, I, Calvados. 

Austria, as lovely as any place on the planet, a favorite destination, a particularly pleasant and civilized state of mind...or so it always seems to me.

Wall to wall Catholic Culture within Rome and the Vatican City.

This painting demanded attention while roaming the Louvre. So austere and atmospheric, a crucifixion scene to meditate on, a reprieve, tranquil and awfully elegant.

Painted by Dutch artist Karel Dujardin, having spent most of his time in Italy; apparently felt the influence.

Timely pic as today bells will ring throughout Rome @ precisely 3pm, signifying the moment Christ died.

I loved living in Rome, they do 'catholic culture' like no other yet wear their religion, like their lives, lightly.

You'll feel the weight of their emotions, certo, along the streets of the eternal city, perhaps a woman sobbing into her mobile next to a fountain, overwhelmed, then less so, gone, replaced by a man making broad gestures, Roman fluency at its finest.  "Ne abbiamo vista di cotte e di crude" Translation; they've seen it all. 

I took this pic back in 2009 atop the gianicolo (Juniculum), little Colette and Godot being blessed. 

Further down the gianicolo you'll find grand statues of Giuseppa Garibaldi and his fierce wife Anita. He unified Italy, one of the founding fathers, with a gift for rallying troops on several continents. When Abraham Lincoln asked, he declined. 

Garibaldi thought priests the cancer of Italian society therefore his gaze looks upon almost all of Rome, all but the Vatican. 

Such are the environs that make up the eternal city...

Adrienne Rich on making people disappear...

Adrienne Rich passed away last month, what a precise mind, it resonates, more than ever. Her words vital what with all kinds of people disappearing; blacks, muslims, hispanics across the borders. So much strife and racism and divisive behavior, even less solidarity on some continents than before.

Since moving to Prague I've met more often with Russians, Czechs and Ukrainian expats, the further East I move the more real their political realities appear to surface in the West, as they always did but now each of us, too many of us, as vulnerable as the other.

Adrienne Rich; 1929-2012. Poet, essayist, feminist.

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.

 

Lynda Barry on Matthew Rothschild; they no longer teach cursive? Doodle, doodle, doodle!

Listened to Matthew Rothschild "The Progressive" and heard a fun blast from the past. Lynda Barry's promoting her latest book What it is, about memory, creativity. And yes, of course I remember my first phone number, and yes, it makes me smile Lynda...; )


Most shocking part of the interview was they'd stopped teaching cursive, really? Sounded sad..as she said, our original digits feed into so many creative parts of our brain. So I doodled while listening, I doodle all the time; it relieves boredom, helps me to work through a conundrum, get lost, get imaginative. Without relying on the distraction of doing housework....

 

Every now and then I write letters in cursive, in fact, just re-wrote one of the stories I'll be publishing next month, just to see and feel it differently, it did.

No more cursive? Say it aint so....

 

Candice Bergen in Gore Vidal's play "Best Man"

Just reading about Candice Bergen starring in Gore Vidal's play "Best Man" restores the faith and quietly calms the nerves; reminiscent of when celebrity inspired us to project our dreams onto their beauty. How could you not love her, I always did, 'specially when everyone else didn't...

Gore Vidal, my uber idol, America's biographer and prescient for over 6 decades, no wonder the plays' hitting a nerve.

Almost makes me want to go to New York, hit broadway and see the play.

Almost.

Occupy thyself, enjoy the epiphany

There's that second when ma petite mignon, aging and refusing to act like it, agile as ever reminds me to be.     

There's that stretch of time when io e mio marito communicate and conspire in the most loving way, with clarity, relying on risk and freedom to feel alive. 

Like now when my orchid spikes, my tulips yet to cycle... 

I look around at beloved ancestors, they may have passed yet here in spirit; silent muses in surround sound. 

Yesterday, a rendezvous with a lovely Russian, a politically savvy women named Lola working on behalf of Pirate Party International, I do hope to contribute in typical chez bay fashion.

Next week I'll head to Paris to finally listen and see a proopcast, engage a coupla senses, laugh in la lumiere to the jazzy improvisational insanity a la Greg Proops...

Cannot wait and yet I can. A moment to occupy myself, enjoy the epiphany....

Czech chicks enjoying their Bohemian Easter Season

Communism could suppress, however now, the Czech people express as they wish.

Easter arrives on the calendar even as religion isn't emphasized here in Prague; Christianity is fine, of course but the date's another way to embrace the sunny season, provide some color around the city, relax and welcome back the sun....

Aggressively equal women of Kazakhstan seek help building Harems

Perhaps it goes against our western sensibilities but it sounds right and fine to me. Projecting gets so tedious and you miss enjoying the good bits, like this. Mio marito sent the following from Almaty. 

Bohemian Spring's on its way...

 

First warm day since we arrived, light gear only, stunning day with jazzy branches for surround sound; weekend's supposed to be great.

Walked all over the city centre; three women to guide home...

Alphonse Mucha and the Russian Peasant.

Checked out the Alphonse Mucha Museum today.  
A Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist known for his distinct work and whimsical commercial style. Apparently his breakthrough came when he designed theatre posters for Sara Bernhardt. 

The most moving portrait was of a Russian peasant woman, far different from all the rest:

life's cycles; women, flowers...

Carpe diem, indeed.

Local people.

Soft and surreal exhibit@ Czech Photo Gallery on Siberia. Per usual its the people that give the eye a reprieve; this man in the boat appears to have a soul living outside as well as in...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colette; top of my world.

All dogs provide joy, what would our lives be without? About 13 years ago I brought Colette home along with the list of do's and don't's  from the breeder.

By the time night arrived I'd disobeyed most, then put the carrier next to the bed as we engaged in a gentle staredown. Suddenly I was quite alarmed I'd even put her in the cage, letting her out immediately, onto my bed and into my heart. 

Since then she's slept on her pillow above my head until morning arrives, waking me gently, her only mode, reminding me it's time to get up and take them out.

Mio marito may skid in via Scotland, Gibraltar, Malta and London but he heads off to Eurasia too quickly, allowing Colette's face to be the first that greets me each and every morning.  

Now that we've hung our map behind our king sized tempur pedic bed, large enough for we three or four, Colette appears to be on top of the world. Per always.  

Throughout the day her eyes forever focused on keeping my actions in her sight; I've rarely felt alone and should I, she's there within a second to remind me life's just fine.  

She's my angel and sphinx, guarding my version of Library of Alexandria.

What would our lives be without...

Maureen Down on Manskirts, manscara and guyliner, oh my!

Maureen Dowd does go on about Manskirts, manscara, guyliner and guylashes in her inimitable Irish-American girl fashion. Alas, before Priscilla Queen of the Desert dragged our collective conscious in that direction I was producing and directing my very own fabulous Drag Shows 2 decades back. Such articles and items fail to raise a well tended eye-brow. And, I'm terrifically happy to report a few of my recruits have gone on to wonderful careers in Vegas and stay connected and update me via Facebook, this gives joy.

However I'm with Gore Vidal per usual; forget Hetero or Homo there's just sexual acts.

Customized scents from Paris to Prague; perfume, liqueurs and whiskey too.

In Paris you'll find fragrance boutiques to create custom scents for the skin and they're far less expensive than you'd imagine.

I'd spend 20 to 30 euro every coupla months on a petite present to self and when the need arose for a special Shiseido purchase I'd take a sojourn to Le Salon du Palais. You needn't even venture inside; window shopping along the Jardin du Palais Royal provides enough sensory overload to last for days. 

If you're like me and don't shop for recreation, at the very least its a novelty and great way to get lost amidst the pretty architecture and alleys in la lumiere.

However living in Prague inspires elixirs and scents you imbibe before they might emanate in other ways; olive oils, liqueurs, brandies and whiskies of all kinds. 

Why not, the bottles are so beautiful and the taste test lasts as long as you can with a super sweet salesclerk to write your labels in English, French or Czech; as you wish.  Lovely, wonderful stuff. 

With regards to the Stein Collection, I'm with Leo

Met gets it; The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde' opens today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A unique opportunity to see one of the most important private collections of 20th century art...

In April 1914 Leo relocated to Settignano, Italy, near Florence, and the art collection was divided. The division of the Steins' art collection was described in a letter by Leo:

"The Cézanne apples have a unique importance to me that nothing can replace. The Picasso landscape is not important in any such sense. We are, as it seems to me on the whole, both so well off now that we needn't repine. The Cézanne's had to be divided. I am willing to leave you the Picasso oeuvre, as you left me the Renoir, and you can have everything except that. I want to keep the few drawings that I have. This leaves no string for me, it is financially equable either way for estimates are only rough & ready methods, & I'm afraid you'll have to look upon the loss of the apples as an act of God. I have been anxious above all things that each should have in reason all that he wanted, and just as I was glad that Renoir was sufficiently indifferent to you so that you were ready to give them up, so I am glad that Pablo is sufficiently indifferent to me that I am willing to let you have all you want of it."

Colette is my uber muffin and finest advisor, "life is not a dress rehearsal."

Her namesake is Colette of course, author of Gigi and all that it might imply.

Like the author and my petite papillon, I too believe in being true to your beloved. Be intimate, be explicit and explore life's wide range of reference points...

Long before the TSA, when Lord Berners met Sergei Diaghilev; details were different.

Once upon a time we weren't buried in brands, enticed to 'like' chic luggage and major airlines on FB, as if suddenly glamorous by association. Travel is anything but attractive...    

Mio marito recently skidded in from Eurasia, he'll travel to another 5 countries in the next 10 days. I project nothing but stress, what with sim chips, plugs, phones, currencies, passports let alone packing for multiple places and meetings. Interesting, perhaps. Stressful, very. 

I suppose the change of scenery could provide enough sensory overload to override the reality. But travel can be rough. 

Ironically enough traveling to Paris is far more glamorous than living and banking in la lumiere. Arguing in another language with inebriated neighbors once famous for soft porn movies like Emmanuel was less than, but yes, traveling by train to Paris is glamorous, d'accord.  

Greg Proops; Smartest man in the world podcast, ctd.

My day is always a bit better when the Greg Proops app announces a new proopcast, this one's called Magnets.

Greg Proops references are gettin' wider, raunchier and wittier  than ever...that voice ringing and slinging just about every item skidding from the 60's into yesterday.

Greg Palast on Alex Jones; couldn't have said it better myself.

Other than Anonymous, there's too few making an impact. Too few modern day muckrakers, with their heart in the right place...alas, we have Greg Palast. 

His thoughts on Alex Jones align with my own. Alex is a force not to be denied, the most popular radio host on the internet in North America, nooooo dispute on that data...and the fact he showcased the women that run democrats against the UN agenda 21, two lesbians that are pro-choice proves he is on the side of the angels. He actually stopped talking for an hour. 

Go Greg, your book, Vulture's Picnic is doing well, as it should. Go Alex, go RON PAUL!!

Here's the link, apparently it does not want to play cut and paste. Greg Palast in Praise of Alex Jones

Divinely inspired Pop and then some; John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Moving from Amsterdam to Prague allows past treasures in the form of books and photographs to re-surface and inspire attention.

Not unlike long term relationships, like emotions, items get lost, then found and this one made me particularly happy,  David Sheff's book called "All we are saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono."

A book about the miracle of a man; the mystic prince and the Oriental princess. When I say Oriental, I write the term in the deeply respectful manner of Edward Said. 

Back then, Yoko Ono was reviled, not only regarded as a manipulative bitch, the press crucified her. She was Lucifer and his minister Mephistopheles combined. It's insane in hindsight. She was just a completely independent soul, uniquely Yoko Ono.

Rosa Koire and Kay Tokerud; Democrats against UN AGENDA 21; "This is not a conspiracy theory, it is a conspiracy fact."

Who are these extraordinary women?

"We are civil rights advocates, pro-choice, and pro-gay marriage, who until recently considered ourselves 'progressive Democrats.'  We are university educated, middle income professionals who seek to make common cause with others in the United States who share our concerns."  

Excellent.

What's their story?

Divinely inspired Pop; Whitney Houston

I'm certain the obituaries will ebb and flow with equal amounts of judgment and praise.  Like Michael Jackson their top tier talent left us long before their bodies did; you don't soar to those heights without the gods of gravity playing their fickle game.

Amsterdam to Prague; from black and white to technicolor.

Who cares how or if one arrives, it's all about the process innit? And now that the boxes have arrived and left, I'm can get lost and explore this lovely state of mind, I can imbibe that kind of excitement that bursts each time you turn a corner and uncover another surprise.  

We live in Praha 2, it's central and wonderfully enough, it's finally snowed...who does not love that first flurry of flakes, the locals seems happy the white stuff has finally arrived.

my family, our past, the future

Unpacking 192 boxes, again, inevitably lends to reflection as old photos arrive, tease the mind, make me smile and wanna skip down memory lane.

I can practically see the nostalgia kick in but the heart survives, a soft pain at first, then quickly lessens for what better way to move on in life then to honor ones past. Isn't this how the Goths or Visigoths prayed, by honoring their ancestors? Yes, I like that, that's my kinda faith. 

Of course one can pretend to be what they wish to become, why not, there's nothing quite as hopeful as the day following the one being lived; self-help and therapy provide so much promise, to so many.

And yet what about the past, we can't possibly deny how manners and the ability to focus created balance even as modern life, full of informality and distractions, expedites the chaotic nature of our collective lives.

Alas, reviewing the past can be an insightful exercise, the kind that carries emotional weight, enough to lighten the load in future.

Inshallah; Hanaa Ben Abdesslem

Tunisian model Hanaa Ben Abdesslem has been announced as the newLancôme face, becoming the first Muslim model for the brand ever. 

Iron Lady; Meryl Streep's compassionate take on the conviction style politician.

I was surprised by how quiet the film felt, how The Iron Lady remained relatively silent about so many issues surrounding such a forceful and compelling woman. 

A good film, emotional, as much about its subject as it is about Meryl Streep's moving portrayal of Margaret Thatcher. 

Perhaps too obvious as I shake my head in endless admiration, regarding both the actress and politician: "What a woman!"

Streep is so technically brilliant it's impossible to deny her emotional insistence, her adroit ability of imposing a layer of warmth and meaning upon a woman intent on ideas, on change, on making her mark when women played such a minor role in political life.  

I remember Thatcher's era, having lived in London in the mid 80's. I may have lived less than a year but my time was filled with intense memories and events unfolding almost daily.

I had little clue let alone focus on my future, fantasizing about becoming a playwright after studying at the University of London for a semester, interning at a fringe theatre in east London. It was insanely fun and eerily stark at the same time; I was not only living with a card carrying labor party member and activist, a man known today as much for his mind as his acting ability, but I was surrounded by one very colorful and illustrious theatrical crowd. And yes, they almost all loathed Margaret Thatcher.

Ana Marie Coz and Melinda Henneberger; too few female political bloggers in DC...

I wondered where she went, that snarky chick, the one who started the political blog Wonkette. Such a clever girl, too elusive to categorize, having written the kind of blessays capable of inspiring love or hate and little in between; so deliciously low, left leaning and deeply satirical; american style.

Ron Paul: Perhaps we can't handle the truth.

Don't get me wrong, I understand perfectly well why people find Libertarianism a cold and harsh philosophy. It requires a massive amount of self-reliant behavior. 

If I hadn't grown up in Seattle I might not be as receptive, the Emerald City was such an entrepreneurial state of mind. I didn't know anyone that worked or relied on the government. I suppose that's part of the reason today's climate appears so startling, to realize the number of people that rely on the government; as client, or employer, to intervene on their behalf, to take care of them.

Salzburgerin on Bachmann and Palin: "Ze vimen are pretty but zer ugly yah?"

I love to visit cemeteries. Here in Salzburg the oldest Catholic one is called Petersfriedhof. It's uber elegant and atmospheric, allegedly the von Trapp family hid behind their ornate, black wrought iron gates.  Allegedly.

On Christmas Eve, after visiting familiar destinations like Cafe Bazar and Cafe Tomaselli with mio marito I wandered back into the cemetery, alone, mid afternoon.

I find them particularly interesting in Paris, Northern Italy, Germany and Prague, peaceful and solemn; a refuge to contemplate life and its cycles.

The Italians adorn their headstones with pictures of family members, the French express their respect with statues and effects, the Germans and Austrians boast pristine  arrangements atop the grave with fir branches, candles and pansies (they represent thought), lovingly tended to with miniature Christmas trees this time of year.

The UK and the US

Still a strong bond and so many movies to support said fact. Re-visited a personal fave last night called 84, Charing Cross Road.

Ann Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins are perfectly cast. The movie is nostalgic, dear and I'd forgotten all the lovely poems.  

Including this one by W. B. Yeats:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

Hillary Clinton channels the Manchurian candidate...

If you're not bombarded by the media, if you get some distance, like I do, from across the pond, she's become, her role, her voice, almost unbearable...what happened to Hillary...

Glenn Greenwald:

"Hypocrisy from the U.S. Government — having U.S. officials self-righteously impose standards on other countries which they routinely violate — is so common and continuous that the vast majority of examples do not even merit notice. But sometimes, it is so egregious and shameless — and sufficiently consequential — that it should not go unobserved.

Learning to listen to Alex Jones.

I like podcastland. My progressive left memes are re-enforced by Amy Goodman and for my far right, evangelical listening pleasure there is but one Alex Jones. 

Amy Goodman & co are natural extensions of a political lifestyle while growing up along the west coast. Alex Jones, on the other hand, presents a bit of a challenge.

I found his voice while living aboard our sailboat in Venice back in 2010. It was a solitary existence in northern Italy, finite and nice because I knew it to be finite. Our teak salon and deck chairs created a calm environment; my time was spent differently, as if I had more than I had before. 

So, for three hours each day I'd listen to this guy called Alex Jones, from Austin, Texas of all places, his voice so uniquely passionate and very, very rare. 

An immesely entertaining guy, kinda like the Italians. When they try to be funny, they fail, when they're naturally engaged; nothing less than sublime. Little surprise Alex has many Italian fans.