A Tree Falls in Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania

As I blogged last October ( Dead Tree In My Back Yard ) there was a huge dead tree in my back yard leaning towards the house. I intended to cut it down piecemeal from the top; a little bit at a time. After last October I realized that would be too time consuming and frankly a bit dangerous.

Well Memorial Day, with help of a friend I finally brought it down.

Me & Mark

There's the tree.

Vic the videographer.

Jenny standing triumphantly over the downed tree.

After The Crash: An Essay-Novel of the Post-Hydrocarbon Age

Review of

After The Crash

by Tom Blair.

The subtitle, “An Essay-Novel of the Post-Hydrocarbon Age” tells it all. After The Crash by Caryl Johnston is a well-written, breezy book. It is also prescient; obviously so, frighteningly so.

One day soon people will look at this time in American history and wonder why society was so unprepared - the way we look at the Great Depression today. Nature has periods of cataclysm - geological, physical, economic, and social. After The Crash covers them all. And covers them from an epistemological point of view the resonates deeply with mine.


What happens when fossil fuel becomes precious? We are currently at peak production - but demand from China, India and other developing nations is booming. Furthermore for the first time in history, China and India can outbid us for oil. The days of the oxcart are coming back - for us. We are tomorrow’s third-world nation. Full disclosure here - the authoress, Caryl Johnston is a friend of mine. Nevertheless this review is easy - because After The Crash is a very good book.



Look at this historical timeline graphic from the preface. Then look at the headlines today. We are running out of fossil fuel.























Although environmentalists and nature-worshippers imagine this time will be a paradise, the end of fossil fuels will be hard times; causing major social re-alignment unpleasant to everyone. I very much enjoyed Caryl Johnston’s description of our “neo-feudal” future. So also the images of a future without global communication, also the rise of human-generated energy as a currency; the return of localism for lack of energy to transport people.

Having read After The Crash I feel like sticking close to home; saving my money, and contributing to the culture in the town where my daughter is growing up.

You should read After The Crash - it is like lookng at the headlines we will be seeing next year.

Midsummer Night's Dream - week 2 approacheth

This is my computer screen at work. I'm sliding back into a Midsummer Night's Dream mode - Puck needs a forest bower where he can dance.

I had nothing to lose because they think I'm eccentric anyway.

"We fairies that do run by the triple Hecate's team, now are frolic"

Midsummer Night's Dream

Well the first week of Midsummer Night's Dream is over. It has been great. Small audiences but very well done performances and lots of genuine enthusiasm and compliments.

Here's a pic of me, Phyllis & Victoria from Thursday night ( April 24, 2008).

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Well my fantasy role happens to me this Wednesday. We open Midsummer Night's Dream with King of Prussia Players, April 23, 24, 25, 26, May 1, 2. Really an awesome cast - with dancing, and song.

What kind of bug is this?

What kind of bug is this? And more importantly - what can I do about it?

Over the past several months we've had a problem with bugs like this getting inside our house. Help! Where do they come from? Could they be breeding somewhere inside, or nesting outside?

Herstein's Mennonite Church, 1803 - a Good Friday meditation

When I drive from my home in Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania south to Rt. 422 I will take the charming, woodsey backway known as Neiffer Rd. About midway in my journey I pass an old church that would appear abandoned and is clearly unused except that it shows signs of being kept as a museum or antique by someone or some group that loves it very much. So as my peculiar form of meditation and reverence on this Good Friday I stopped at the church, took these pictures, and began this pictorial.

I have asked a German friend of mine to help me read the stone on the left (above). Here is what we think it says -

"Hier

rusten die ge-

beine der verliorbenen

MARIA SCHUMACHER

Sie war gebohrenden im

April 1762 und starb den

12 von July 1803. ihre

alter ??? 3 month

???? Tage"

My German is a bit rusty but I think this would be translated -

"Here rests the bones of the beloved Maria Schumacher. She was born in April 1762 and died on the 12th of July 1803. (41 years, 3 months and ??? days.)"

The church (called a chapel) is smallish but looks like it could easily seat 100 congregants. It sits on an unpaved lot rather close to Neiffer Road. Note that until just the last few years Neiffer would have been a quiet country road. Behind the church - from where I took the photo above is an old church graveyard.

I have done a full webpage of this old church with more pictures and background information here:

Herstein's Mennonite Church

The Dream Garden

This place is like a dream.

The Dream Garden

Philadelphia

RIP - Arthur C. Clarke

Dec. 16, 1917 - March 19, 2008

I was always a fan of Arthur Clarke - long before 2001, A Space Odyssey. But my God what a movie!

After that - everyone loved this great, great man. But we who love science fiction knew him long before. We knew him from The Star , Childhood's End , and his wonderful TV show Mysterious World.








Born in Sommerset, England - Arthur Clarke was a child of the stars. A man out of time - for all time.

May we who reach for the stars - love this man who managed to grasp them.

The tango and young musicians

Some great writing here - yes I'm prejudiced. I dance Argentine Tango. It is a turn-on. It is as close as a married man is going to get to a woman not his wife.


The tango and young musicians
by Tom Purdom
from The Broad Street Review

"When I spoke to Krantz at the reception after the concert, he said that his partner had really gotten into the tango. Stillman herself said that she moved around and danced to the music when she rehearsed. She had kept that impulse under control on stage and transmitted just enough body language to add a visual element to the performance. Believe me, you don’t need Rudolf Valentino or Fred Astaire when somebody plays the way she was playing."

All the classic dances are stylized courting rituals. As any biologist will tell you, many animals and birds woo their mates by dancing. It’s one of the techniques males use to demonstrate their genetic fitness. It’s more fun than fighting and healthier, too.

When serial adultery was a major pastime -

The minuet combines sexual display with a communal setting and a ceremonial swapping of partners. It reflects the mating customs of a highly structured society in which serial adultery was a major pastime of the aristocracy. Its successor, the waltz, added the trappings of romance and the titillation of public embraces.

The tango combines sex with grace, like the waltz, but it’s more overtly erotic and embraces a wider emotional range.

Someone once said that the waltz expresses the idea that life is, with reservations, worth celebrating. The tango springs from the feeling that the sexual attraction of two conscious, intelligent creatures is a complex, endlessly fascinating marvel."

Interesting review of Merce Cunningham in Broad Street Review

I have for the past several months enjoyed reading the Philadelphia journal of local culture Broad Street Review .

The latest issue has a review of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Annenberg by Jim Rutter that is very perceptive.

"In an economy where many Americans sit at desks for 40 years of their lives, only those who engage in some type of athletic or physical pursuit retain the knowledge that they live in bodies—their primary experience of the world filtered through the lens of conscious thought. Strangely enough, I could say something similar about Merce Cunningham’s choreography, at least as represented by the two pieces performed by his company at the Annenberg.

Unlike his polar opposite in George Balanchine—who once described the goal of his choreography as “trying to make the music visible"— Cunningham works independently of a composer. Seated alone in a room— at a computer, no less (using a program called DanceForms)— he composes works that convey no sense of scenes or theme, no story, just a calculated sense of logic designed to produce pure movement."

The Screwtape Letters - the Lantern Theater

The Lantern Theater is my favorite Philadelphia "little theater." It's intimate. It's professional. You are very close to the actors - and the shows are different. Sometimes I don't care for their selections - but often I do. I've seen a marvelous King Lear there and a wonderful The Bacchae. In this case I enjoyed the show very much. Anthony Lawton and Guenevive Perrier are wonderful. Their physical/dance skits are terrific.

Mostly this is Anthony Lawton's show - in fact he wrote it - rather adapted it from CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters - a tremendously perceptive book that I read at least 15 years ago.

The show is over now - and I'd only recommend you see it with a terrific star like Anthony Lawton because it is a one-man show - and if he's not good the show won't be either.

It was a mostly sold-out run. Nice to know that shows like this are popular draw and make money for the production houses.

RIP - Bobby Fisher

Bobby Fisher was a boyhood hero of mine. As much for his anti-establishment attitude as for his genius over the chessboard. After college I became a tournament chess player (reaching a USCF ranking of A-player with a rating of 1865). I later moved from chess into Go - but always the first cause in my love of games and human challenge is the inspiration I Got from Bobby Fisher and his match agasint Boris Spassky in 1970.

RIP - Bobby Fisher.

Snowfall in Perkiomenville, January 17, 2008

Snowfall in Perkiomenville, January 17, 2008. It was a pretty snowfall - wet and heavy. This picture has the holly tree in the foreground and the stone circle in the background.

RIP Sir Edmund Hillary

We who climb things hope that somewhere you are climbing still. You were a shining example of courage, humility, charity, refinement, and grace.

A place where Puck might dance

This is the Greenstead Church (The church of St. Andrew at Greensted-juxta-Ongar about 10 miles from Epping).

The author of the unofficial guide to Great Britain describes the churchyard thus "The atmosphere in this little churchyard on a sunny day is absolutely magical! Should you go anywhere near Chipping Ongar this church is an absolute must."

All Saints, Brixworth, Northhamptonshire

"Brixworth is one of the foremost Anglo-Saxon buildings surviving in the United Kingdom.

All Saints, Brixworth is essentially an Anglo-Saxon church, described by Clapham as 'perhaps the most imposing architectural memorial of the seventh century surviving north of the Alps'."

from All Saints, Brixworth, Northhamptonshire , March 23, 2007

by Idle Speculations

Giant birds in Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania

Over the past couple years I have noticed an influx of gigantic, almost pre-historic birds into our neighborhood in Perkiomenville. There's a pigfarm about 200 yeards away on the other side of the forest. It has always attracted a large number of scavengers. But these birds seem to be almost of a different species - of a different time. They are large, black, have an enormous wingspan, and menacing nature. They are like Pteradactyls. I fear they could swoop down and snatch away one of our kitties (Harry or Butterscotch). Liberals will of course accuse me of being prejudiced against them. But trust me - these creatures are animals - and they are frightful.

One of these birds is injured and for the past several days has walked through our yard. Today I was fortunate and managed to get this video of him.

If anyone has any idea of what this creature is - please let me know.

Perkiomenville Ice storm, December 15, 2007

Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania ice storm, December 15, 2007 - 7:45 AM.

St. Asaph's - from the inside

As you can see from my post of May 27 below - I enjoy church architecture. I was in St. Asaph's again - this time it was Friday, December 14. Here are some pictures of the inside of the worship chamber.

St. Lucia's Festival at Gloria Dei Church, Philadelphia

St. Lucia's Festival at Gloria Dei Church, Philadelphia, December 9, 2007. Addition clips & Pics.

Pretty song.

St. Lucia 2007 herself.

St. Lucia Festrival, Gloria Dei Episcopal Church, Philadelphia

St. Lucia Festrival, Gloria Dei Episcopal Church, Philadelphia

December 9, 2007

I'm so glad I went to this. It brought tears to my eyes several times in a short (1 hour) performance.

Connie, Philip, Lydia, Margaret, Barry.

Gloria Dei is the oldest church in Philadelphia. It is the second oldest church in Pennsylvania.

Margaret posing at the graveside of the first St. Lucia.

Nan