Marty’s blog

What’s so hilarious about Pat Condell is not necessarily his lucid take on religion, combined with his articulate wit.  It’s the responses from a whole range of defenders of the religious world that is side-splitting.  From the nearly articulate, though seldom rational religious intellectuals (oops, an oxymoron there), to the stupid and inarticulate nutcases - you don’t really need to listen to Condell for him to make his case.  He best effect is in pushing peoples buttons, and letting their responses make the case for him.

Here’s one of his videos on YouTube.  Be sure to watch some of the related videos.  There’s a lot of comedy there from the god defenders.  Well actually, it would be funny…if it some of them weren’t so scary!  And I’d be even more fearful of religion if I were a woman.

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Joseph Szigeti was know as “the violinist’s violinist”.

I have of a copy of his hard to find autobiography “With Strings Attached”.  It’s a good read actually, with lots of fine anecdotes and life lessons, as well as an interesting life story.

(Among other interesting tidbits, he describes giving up his seat on a plane in 1942, during World War Two, to actress Carole Lombard, who was doing a tour promoting war bonds.  That plane crashed into a mountainside in Nevada on its way from Indiana to California.)

Szigeti’s hands started developing arthritis in his 50’s which later became crippling, and he had to end his career. Even during his early arthritis he still performed wonderfully, his art never suffering.

Though there are many, I think he was the violinist that has influenced me the most.  And still does.  He showed that a violinist’s art goes well beyond the fingers of the left hand. This was a great lesson when I had to relearn the fiddle after a serious left hand injury. I’m no great soloist, but I can at least again make a living at it.  Most of his 78 recordings are in my collection and are still cherished and well played.

This performance is of a movement from the D Major Prokofiev Sonata the was from very late in his career.

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Passing through Huntley (Illinois) on Route 47, on my way to DeKalb today was depressing as usual. A decade or two ago, Huntley and surrounds was a vibrant farming community.

This abandoned farmstead in Huntley will probably be gone the next time I pass through.

It looks like this abandoned grain depot is probably not far behind.

What was once fertile fields, wetlands and pastures is now another large scar on the Midwestern landscape, thanks to rampant development like one huge, depressing place called Sun City (talk about lack of diversity!), and the inevitable shopping malls that follow.

I don’t think rural DeKalb will ever get that bad. Today, outside DeKalb, the corn is high and the farm economy is relatively strong.

But there are signs it’s happening there too.

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If you’ve noticed some strange goings in this blog over the past few days, well…

It started by me updating my Wordpress blog platform. Could not access it afterwards. Yahoo, my host, was no help, and I had no choice but to deactivate and reactivate the blog. Of course that meant that my blog database with all my settings, posts and links, etc. were deleted.

Fortunately I had backups. Well, I thought I was fortunate anyhow. Thing is, Wordpress makes it easy to create backups of your SQL database. But not so with restoring them. You have to get really geeky to do that — or pay someone.

Now I’ve already done it three times!

Three days ago I didn’t even know what an SQL database was, or how to use “phpadmin”, or anything about html code or nothin’. I still don’t want to know, but here I am.

In the meantime, because of my ineptitude, I managed to somehow delete my ENTIRE site, which I had to re-upload after many hours sorting through all the junk that has accumulated in that directory on my hard drive.

After many, MANY! hours, and 2 nearly sleepless nights, things are working. After a fashion. Every third or fourth time I try to access my dashboard, I get that scary screen that says “Unable to connect with database” or something like that. My heart drops into my shoes every time that happens now!

Besides all that, I’ve had a bad stomach for about two days. Something I ate, I think. So I slept til noon today. Haven’t done that for years. It was kinda nice.

And we missed the family picnic today because the tummy was not up to a 2 hour drive each way, and I wouldn’t be able to look at all that good food (and drink), wonderful as it may have been. Sorry folks - I’m sure it went fine without us.

Life was certainly simpler for me before computers. No matter what happens, tomorrow I have to work (yes, on Sunday!) and then if there is any time left over, I spending it on my violin. Period.

If for some reason you’re able to read this post, that means the site hasn’t gone down. And if it has, I don’t care anymore.

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I found my old Lena Horne “Like Latin” LP.  What a gem!

There are many ways to define great beauty.  This is one.

Watch the rest of the videos if you have time.  She’s hard to stop watching!

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Amy and Naomi cut through the crap.

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People have told me that if you have things in storage for more than a year then you should just throw them away. That’s terrible advice!

Unpacking more boxes and finding more old stuff, and it’s still like mining. Yeah, lots of it is junk. But there are gems. I put lots of stuff in storage for a while, including most of my records and books — long story. Now that we’re mostly settled in here and the remodeling is almost done, I’m unpacking and sorting through, little by little.

I found this today: My Minnie Riperton Perfect Angel LP. What an absolute gem!

My high school buddies used to make so much fun of me because I liked this music! They were all only into stuff like ZZ Top, Alice Cooper and the Doobie Brothers.

This album was co-produced for her by Stevie Wonder, who wrote some of the songs, including the cover song. Can you guess what I’m listening to today? I have it playing now, and I have tears in my eyes.

Chicago born and raised, Riperton died of breast cancer in 1979, she was just 31.

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I heard this sound, looked up, grabbed my camera. Gotcha! It must be scenic around here, because they fly over all the time.

The first time - last year - it woke me up early in the morning, me thinking there was a major gas leak somewhere outside. So I got up and went out on the driveway only to find people 150 feet up in a hot air balloon waving down at me in my sleeping attire (shorts and a t-shirt).

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