Living Estate Sale by Owner*

Ad copy for your use.

Living Estate Sale by Owner

"fair market prices for really good shit"

[date, time, place]

Not an auction. No haggling. Mint condition, in working order, unique and one-of-a-kind items. No trash, no junk. Art, antiques and more. Treasures that you can find nowhere else! Come one, come all. First come, first served. Collectors' items. Cash and carry. No buyer's remorse. Guaranteed--what you see is what you get. Price as marked. No returns. From the very small to the very large, from the inexpensive to the most. Gotta see this stuff and find just what you were looking for, or what you weren't looking for and now can't exist without. Ranch table lamp of rusted iron? Got it. Antique outboard motor? Got it. Tools? Of course. Handcrafted weather vane of horse and buggy suitable for barn or bedroom? Sure, and why not? Handmade harness for washing your pocket poodle? Why doesn't everyone with a dog in a purse have one? Gotta get here and snag a deal. Won't last long. At the end of the day, owner must move on, close up shop and has to run all the way to the bank before he kicks the bucket. Help him out.

Prepared by Word-of-the-Day Salvation and Redemption services, a non-profit church for the overly burdened souls of color on this earth. You being a whitie of some pinkish color with treasures 'nd to some--trash. . . in the name of Gypsy, THE God is Us All.

Respectfully,
Pastor I. M. Free

_____
* Intended reader is a close relation, seemingly consummate hoarder.

So interesting, disappointing . . . a waste of our time

So interesting . . . but the writing you* sent me has no attribution/source other than you got it from a relative. So, what to say. Well, here is two cents.

The writing states: "Bernie married his college sweetheart, Deborah Shilling, and spent his small inheritance on a summer home in Vermont on 85 acres.  The shack had a dirt floor and no electricity, maintaining his proletariat credibility, but not impressing his new bride.  He refused to get a steady job, so his wife didn’t stick around long, divorced after 18 months."

According to the usual online sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Personal_life

and

https://www.biography.com/political-figure/bernie-sanders

whether they divorced 18 months or two years after marriage is unclear, tending toward the time being two years. Suspicions arise.

But no matter. Here is the real giveaway, except for the most obvious--see last sentences of the piece.

His choice of summer property was a cause for "un-impressing" his new bride, AND he didn't get a job--So she left. Seems like pure conjecture, unless it can be substantiated.

So judging for myself, interesting article/writing, but I wouldn't bet on anything being True until proven with documentation and the identity of who is writing this stuff, where published, date, etc.

As for the most commonly checked online sources, Bernie is all about his politics and political career, and how great, etc.

Sounds a little bit like Mayor Pete's Wikipedia profile, put up and maintained by him/his campaign, although avowed by them, "It's not so!" However the metadata for a recently uploaded, then deleted, photo of him, told the tale. Came from him or his campaign.

So who can you believe?

Today I vote for Edward Abbey. His piece on rednecks worth more than the political crap we are subjected to, so that we waste our time debating stuff like I have gotten into above. Our candidates are the best we have to offer? Give me a break. I vote for the likes of Edward Abbey.

Alternatively, your bringing this writing about Bernie to my attention has provided today's writing/research exercise, which I am very much thankful for.

Best,
kevin

PS The first three pages of a Google search on

"In all her years in congress Elizabeth Warren introduced 110 bills.  2 passed."

produced no reputable source for this article--all people, including at least one from China, posting and re-posting a decidedly suspect (opinionated) text from an unknown source.

PPS Oh, this is priceless; I didn't get it at first. "Bernie’s past, including a brief stint living in a kibbutz in Israel is cloaked in secrecy. (It worked for B Hussein.)" A reference to our former president suggesting there was a cover-up, etc., about his biography, birthplace, etc. Opinion/conspiracy!

No . . .I have drawn my own CONCLUSION--the article on Bernie on the face of it is not credible.

PPPS Example of just one of the places where you can find this article (and waste(?) your time), an article purportedly a "contribution to public/civic discourse" circulating for probably for over a year by my best guesstimate.

https://www.ini-world-report.org/2020/02/18/who-is-bernie-sanders/

_____
* From a friend who sent me a copy of the contribution, which can be seen via the link just above.

Broken countries

[Written but not sent to a friend.]

Italians. No, they're not that bad, nor is anyone else, my idealist self insists. Only this. If you live in a foreign culture, you will step unintentionally into the smelly stuff you can't clean off your shoe, plus you will never change "them". The foreigners--to you--have their ways of doing things, as an old German friend of mine reminded me often: "They know what they do." The subtext was and is you are not one of them and will never be, so get used to their ways and adapt as best you can without grossly offending, or getting thrown out of the community or country.

Such has been life for me abroad for over twenty-five years. Stepping in it, "Oh, shit!" And do you really think I would settle a purchase in two meetings here at the lawyer's office? one private (without counsel) where a certain amount of cash changes hands, and another where the same thing happens but for the (adjusted) total to seal the contract--with legal witnesses--to be transmitted to the tax office? I did that. There was no other way to get the deal done to put a roof over my head and later get rid of it (did not take place in Italy by the way).

So discovering the ways these people do things is my daily classroom with, most of the time, no dire consequences, except perhaps some embarrassment and constant self-realizations about who I am and where I find myself. Never a dull moment. That's the juice of living outside one's own culture without native level language skills: Ever a classroom and self-guided psychological therapy tour. Oh, and education and therapy always come at a cost.

I do find Italians amusing, and I have written about both the ups and downs of residing in this country and my local area with fantastic panoramas and cultural lessons aplenty. But I walk softly. . . . And I have Italian friends, one or two. It is a friendly and inviting place. Lots of positive stuff, including the food which is more than pizza, pasta, and pane--and the daily obligatory religious ritual at 13.00 sharp, pranzo. I won't elaborate here. It is easier to complain or feebly explain. Just know, I love a lot about Italy including my friends and daily encounters, which are always interesting, often amusing. Celebrating Eataly? goes without saying.

You mentioned that someone you knew had a kind of systemic health problem from which s/he died. Could have been saved with the right intervention(s). So too I find Italy. The country is hobbled if not broken, not easy for ordinary people to cobble a living. A systemic problem. Fundamental changes needed in politics, government and culture--society--so that one can have a meaningful and productive life as well as get on well enough economically.

In the US, with regard to guns and violence, I think it also a systemic problem. Why do people have 'em? and use them, abuse them, and have unwanted accidents and tragedies? Many factors, many causes. Some with guns, perhaps you, collect them, care for them (weird?), trade them, go and practice on paper targets, hunt game, etc. But why do ordinary people feel the need to have a gun? Ordinary people where I have lived in Europe do not feel they need a gun. Of course there are intruders and bad people. But this is not a gun culture, nor a particularly dangerous or violent one--in part I would argue because guns are not a right (also weird!) to have and hold.

Here in the CZ just yesterday we had a shooter killing several. This is so rare in my experience here that to see that in the news is shocking. The same is not shocking in the US. Kind of business as usual I'd argue--because of the multiple things that need to change such that such incidents in the US become out of the ordinary, not common, rare, shocking again.

I am not qualified or smart enough to tell anyone what to do to solve guns/violence/threat to person and property in America. But it is more of a problem than it should be. Given who and what America is, make-my-day is every day and no one is or should be surprised. When you are a fish in the fishbowl, what else is there? You have to get out of the water and breathe different air differently from the tacit ways you have accepted as normal, that is experience life beyond familiar waters. America needs a new normal . . . but I fear that will not be anytime soon. We are so polarized, and I agree with some that we are not very bright as a nation (but if nudged--don't do it--could name a few names).

I find the article linked below interesting in regard to both of these subjects--living in a culture and making needed socio-cultural changes. Not optimistic but seems to sum up where we are. Read if you are interested, or we can just move on and set these more serious subjects aside. I for one am unable because of age, location, and other factors to make any difference. And there's the rub.

The article begins:

The United States is sick with income and other forms of social inequality. It suffers from cruelty, loneliness, greed, gangster capitalism, white supremacy, violence, sexism and a culture of ignorance and distraction. Our broken political system does not encourage critical thinking or nurture a capacity for responsible, engaged citizenship.

Here is the link.

https://www.salon.com/2019/12/09/author-chris-hedges-on-trump-the-democrats-and-the-dying-american-empire/

Birthday voucher

[Give your squeeze new underwear for her birthday along with this voucher  to redeem.]

Birthday Coupon

30 plus, but who is counting?

and said you can't be a mounting?

Happy Birthday to the girl

at her age can have a whirl:

And feel something hot and sexy,

say, eating food, some Tex-Mexy.

But it's up to you to decide.

Have spicy food, or lose those pants--for a Ride!

Silly ditty

If each other we would see,
set a time to make it be.
For time is life, don't you know,
without its measure we must go.
Our days are undeser'ved gifts
within the which--admit--we ever shifts:
From that to this and back to that,
after what?--ain't it true--back we sat,
wondering if wise and best we chose.
Shared we moments with those . . . so dear we hold?
before the gifter says, "There, there. Be bold."
I would shout indeed a yea:
Let not reticence waste a day.
If you're like to think the same,
let us quit the bench and join the game.
I would ring to enter at your gate
and en'tain long and mutual discourse--
well, at least enough gossip us to sate
till next we meet thus absolved, no remorse.
So when we knocks, do let us in.
Won't stay long, too much info is a sin.

Re-framing and re-affirming

_A Puma in the Tree_ is about the importance of kindness and identity. We are flawed and get together, and do stuff,  regardless of whether it is the best course ahead judged subjectively, by our self-narrator, or objectively--by the you reader/observer.

A revised edition is due soon and will be free to download.

Having escaped The City, Eh-em cautiously reveals himself in fictional Upton. Art and attachments as well as real and imagined traumas prevent rapid progress. But this nice guy wins and gets the girl. Is it another dead end or their beginning? A second coming of age mixes postmodern bits with recurrent images. One's story and kindness might fix who they become in the spaces uncovered.

_A Penny Drops_ is about lack of self knowledge and clarity of action-decision in the running course of things. Only experience and mounting social pressures do we, sometimes, open our eyes and take the next best step.

The draft will be finished soon and will be free to download.

He can have the wholesome girl next door, the pretty nympho-psychologist, the wealthy spirit guide, or a flawed beauty queen. What must he discover to have his heart's desire?

Headlines and teasers, their effects

[Yes. After consideration and no space to just place stuff, here we go again . . . I re-framed why I shut this thing down exactly two years ago.]

from Hyperallergic Weekend, July 28, 2019, with >>s

In Praise of Painting's Ambiguity: The literalism of 1960s Formalism has been replaced by an insistence on the factual, which leaves little room for the imagination or for speculation.
John Yau

 >>The factual is always and everywhere provocation to imagine and speculate.

The Defiant Undercurrents of Feminine Art: While many of Julia Kuhl’s paintings are funny and provocative others are more troubling, alluding to the ways women’s personal, professional, and sexual boundaries often go broadly unacknowledged.
Megan N. Liberty

>>And how would a painting allude if not only through an interpretation? Let me see/decide for myself. Key-tag for visual scrutiny, _boundary_.

Our Love for Fetishes: Sculptor Margaret Wharton and painter Issy Wood are both open to the irrational currents flowing through our lives.
John Yau

>>How much like me would they, or their works, be? Or if flowing through (all) our lives, what's the big deal?

A Curator's Perspective on Davide Sorrenti's Fashion Photography: The photographer captured the currents of hip hop, skater, grunge, and rave culture that flourished in downtown Manhattan in the 1990s.
Nicole Miller

>>Only voyeurs who wish to expand their breadth of visual coup count need peep.

An Unlikely Marriage of Science and Art: In the hate-convulsed worldscape of today, Heather Dewey-Hagborg proposes oxytocin as that long looked-for potion: The Love Drug.
Anthony Haden-Guest

>>The differences in responses to "different types" of oxytocin among males and females suggests Heather may not be onto something, at least as far as males are concerned. And she can't be suggesting we have more amourous females than males running around. What images come to mind with that solution to the hate-convulsed worldscape? Okay, many if not most males are so easily distracted. But after the post-coital smoke? er vape? What then?

Jamila Woods and Her Ancestral Spirits: Woods’s new album Legacy! Legacy! is framed by the presence of a larger community — the enacted community of choir singing and an imagined community of Black artists.
Lucas Fagen

 >>How present, or large, can "a larger community" be if confined to a choir, much less combined with an imagined group of whatever sort? Read, or dismiss for lack of coherence.

Dora Maar, More than a Surrealist Muse: The Centre Pompidou’s Dora Maar honors Picasso’s famous muse for the pivotal part she clearly, and often daringly, played in the establishment of the European avant-garde.
Eileen G'Sell

>>An almost unknown--to me--muse had a pivotal part to play and I am just now re-minded of her name? Bold claims for establishing if even partly something pan-european . . . I should have been aware . . .