Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

"Next year in Jerusalem" there will be peace
Happy Easter Steve, are you going to dye some eggs, did you ever play that game in school where we used to bring our colored eggs and then we would challenge each other to see who had the toughest egg by hitting the tip of one egg against the other? I think the winner got to keep the other guys egg.

Somehow we managed to work the egg dying into the week of passover because our grandparents and parents wanted us to fit in at school

Have you ever seen the charlton heston version of the Ten Commanments?
The bit about the events celebrated in the Passover holidays.

I still have not connected the dots between Passover and Easter. Just a coincidence that in the west Easter is celebrated acording to the solar calender and good friday is the first day of passover.

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Yes, Still Trucking, egg dyeing is what is going to happen on saturday night. Tonight, Good Friday, we'll have a fish dinner. Then on Easter, after services, we'll go have a great feast at "Golden Corral" buffet restaurant. Many Christian folks give up something for Lenten season, and eat special diets until the
Easter holiday. I understand that Passover foods are special, too, like unleavened bread? Of course, there is the "kosher diet" which folks prepare things a certain way and don't eat pork or certain types of shellfish, etc.

I'm really fond of "latkas" or potato pancakes which are either plain or have onions or other things in them. We smother those with sour cream. I LOVE kosher pickles, & lox (smoked salmon) bagel sandwiches with creamed cheese & capers on them. My favorite Easter or Christmas bread is black pumpernickel or
rye bread. I also like a an egg plant dish called "Poor Man's Caviar"...
I have an old Russian recipe from my Grandma which I make periodically
for special occasions. It has baked & pureed eggplant, purple onions, green bell peppers, tomatoes & tomato paste & copious amounts of olive oil all mashed up & slowly stir fried together. I takes about a half hour to make... Happy Passover, too!
I had a "Great Aunt" ,who was my Paternal Grandpa's second wife, who was Jewish. We even went to synagogue with her several times. My sister & Great Aunt would sit on one side of the aisle and Grandpa & we four guys would sit on the other side of the aisle. I was suprised by that custom...Reminded me of the
Shakers custom. I think my Mom & Dad went with them, too, once, and Mom
sat with Great Auntie & sis. Dad would sit with Grandpa & us guys. We went
to the sunrise Easter service earlier...This was back in San Antonio, TX about
fifty years ago. My Paternal Grandma died in 1963.

I understand that Passover and Easter coincide many times as do Hanukkah & Christmas. I think our moveable feasts have the "lunar year" in common. Back in the old days we used to have roast lamb or mutton on Easter. Now we have
turkey...

Speaking of turkeys...Chuck Colson, Nixon's bagman at the Watergate breakin,
died at age 80. "Another one bites the dust..." He supposedly "got religion" but
he never fooled me. I remained skeptical... Hello in there, anybody home!?

HAPPY EARTH DAY !

Happy May Day! Workers unite, you have none to lose but your fetters.
I hope you listened to President Obama's speech...

Greetings, from the high & holy highway... Happy Cinco de Mayo! "Chew the fat" down my way... Yoo hoo, out there!

Happy
Mother's
Day!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! Also, please remember our women veterans.
We have more women veterans now than at any time in history.

Y'all come down to Riverbend Music Festival in Chattanooga, TN, on June 8th--June 16th! Great days of fun & music...

A sad note, Ray Bradbury, the sci-fi & short story writer died today at 91 years old...A passing of a mentor for all short story writers... ...As we all must pass, too...His work lives on through his millions of readers...

RAY BRADBURY and ME

“I don't write science fiction,” said Ray Bradbury(1920-2012) in one of his many interviews. “I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451; it’s based on reality,” he continued. The book was given this name because 451 degrees is the temperature at which paper burns. Bradbury started writing in 1937 at the start of a Plan I have been associated with for nearly 60 years.(1)

In 1937 Bradbury was 13 and he wrote every day for the rest of his life: until 5 June 2012.2 For Bradbury science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. –Ron Price with thanks to (1)Wikipedia, 7 June 2012: the Baha’i teaching plan, and (2) Bradbury chose a burial place at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles with a headstone that reads "Author of Fahrenheit 451".

You brought sci-fi into the mainstream
by writing lyrically & evocatively about
the lands of the imagination, but my life(1)
of reading took me in different directions.

Your mind was ignited by reading-fever at
the age of 8; my fevers were of the body in
sport, playing, fun and games. It would be
years before my mind was ignited: my late
teens and twenties turned my imagination
loose, but not in the direction of sci-fi…..

Mine was the slow working, by sensible and
insensible degrees, of my intellect in the wide
fields of the social sciences and humanities. As
the years went on the biological, & the physical-
applied sciences kept my mind on heat…...We
occupied such different landscapes you and I,
Ray. I wish you well now that you occupy that
land of the undiscovered country from which no
man returns, a whole new world for you & your
imagination, Ray. Go to it with that same fever!!

(1) Bradbury is credited with writing 27 novels and over 600 short stories. More than eight million copies of his works, published in over 36 languages, have been sold around the world. Gerald Jonas, "Ray Bradbury, Master of Science Fiction, Dies at 91," The New York Times, 6 June 2012.

Ron Price
7 June 2012

Ron, Thanks for posting...great eulogy!
Yes, but I also think Ray Bradbury could also be called the greatest fantasy writer of our times...I read that Ray considered himself a writer of fantasy fiction. He took ordinary situations & turned them by twists into the extraordinary. Many of Ray's stories started out grounded in reality & then suddenly you're "up around the bend"! I finished a compilation of his complete short stories several years back. I considered Ray a great mentor & inspiration for my poetry, columns, & stories. Ray was quite a judge of human behavior--either for good or ill, as in the "Martian Chronicles".

Ray did quite an amazing amount of imaginative work for someone who was
just a high school graduate. Ray was very intelligent & was self-taught in
many different subjects. He was a voracious reader & loved libraries as I do...
Ray also wrote quite a bit of poetry...

Ray anticipated much of the on-line gadgets that we have today way back in
the late forties & early fifties... Like Orwell, Ray didn't consider the
surveillance we have as always a good thing...

One good thing about the internet is the open sharing of ideas...It is easier to get a wider audience for imaginative ideas, & possible innovations...There are
many more great writers out there in the net who got their start because
of the open sharing on the net. Many of us are worried, however, about
people copying our works without giving us credit. Copyrights are important...
Ray Bradbury was very careful about his rights to his material... As we all should be...

Thanks, Chat Spot, for your thoughtful response. I've been impressed with many aspects of Bradbury's life, especially his writing virtually every day since he was in his early teens.!-Ron Price

Ron, Thanks for your quick reply. I will always miss "Uncle Ray". I was a great fan of his...

By the way, how is that art museum doing in
Tasmania? I've read interesting reports of it... Have you been there?

There is an excellent overview of Tasmania's art museum at this link: http://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/ .....I have not been there, Chat Spot, since I don't get around much any more. You can go to this link below for another excellent overview of that subject:

DON'T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE LYRICS - NAT KING COLE
www.sing365.com/.../lyric.../Don't-Get-Around-Much-... - United States
"Don't Get Around Much Anymore" Lyrics by Nat King Cole: (Lyrics by Bob Russel, Music by Duke Ellington) This lyrics are like performed by Natalie Cole ...