Thursday, July 31, 2014

2014 miscellany #3

For a couple years, with fotos that i liked, and did not put in other posts, i put in a series of miscellany. This journal just passed five years. Not much has changed, i am sorry to relate. Perhaps, it is time to retire.
These two shots supra are from May's Asian fest.

This choo-choo is in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Brecksville. The bridge above, the FBI had enticed some mentally disturbed young men to want to blow up. They were attracted to the Occupy Movement, which was open to all, and the drifting scruffy and troubled could wander in.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

"I don't think i could worship there"

Thursday, while driving toward a restaurant, with a retired tradesman, we passed a very large church. It was having a car show. On the way back, we stopped and looked at the what...over hundred beauties, including a few 1957 Bel Airs, Plato's car. Because of coffee, and iced tea, we needed to go to the loo. We walked into the edifice and it looked like a large hotel lobby. We walked into a large room to the side, and i wondered whether it was their worship space. It had a large balcony, and theatre seating for perhaps 1500. On the stage there were two huge television screens (the vertical plane dimensions of a soccer goal), in the center back of the stage there was a drum set. I have only seen this once before, after Lennon (Cleveland's Roman Rite ordinary) sold Sacred Heart Elyria, where the high altar had been. Our Orthodox brothers have no instruments in church, and the dead center location of a drum set just baffles sensibilities. In addition, there was at least three large cameras on tripods, and a bunch of speakers. A thing on the right of the stage, may have been a bare cross (with a foot rest?). On the left there was an American Protestant flag, and the national flag.

It was a room, in a very large building. If one sat down there alone, what would one do? sleep, read, munch popcorn? They may do much good there, i don't know; but it has no 'wa'.
 church theatre seating
Saturday, i was at Saint Sava Parma's festival. They are finishing the second phase of their icon project to cover the walls. They are exercising horror vacui. When they are done, there will be no empty walls. They also have a most ornately carved maple iconostasis. I was chatting with a very devoted, and knowledgeable parishioner. We talked of Jugoslav cities, religion, history, art, and all. When i described my Thursday visit, she said, with near horror, "I don't think i could worship there".
 sacred space
Saint Sava is continuing to adorn [click] their church with love, beauty, and devotion. The art sanctifies the eyes. Sitting alone in such a place, it is easy to pray, meditate, and to convene one's soul with God.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

second bridge coming


One innerbelt bridge over the Cuyahoga is gone, and one is up, and another one is coming. Here on Kenilworth, right by Holy Ghost, the western end's supports are coming along.

The rebar column is at least as artistic as many contemporary sculptures (but functional, and built by union tradesmen).
Some of them have already been painted with national flags, identified in English and EspaƱol. Putting plastic over it was too late? Some insipid, anti-social, egotist paint scrawled his vandalism. I swear, that, such graffiti is equivalent to dog pissing.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Incompetency, thy name is Republican

When immediate self contradiction, or complete inaccuracy is the standard for your party's announcements, perhaps your party is too incompetent to be.

 If you have an internal bullshit detector, it must sound like a firetruck is coming every time a Republican speaks.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

tuesday viewing

In some of the moments before sunset, Tuesday evening 15thof July, there were moments of beautiful light. I had a few shots from the base of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, and Edgewater Beach. I was hesitant in posting, because i have posted fotos of these vistas in the past. Rarely are there days in mid-July with the high temperature about 70°F in Cleveland, and they can be beautiful.

Monday, July 14, 2014

some of the bridge is still there

next morning, Interstate 90 Innerbelt bridges

Saturday, 12th of July, 6 o'clock early, most of the remaining steel was detonated to fall. Ohio's Transportation Department wanted people to view from E.14th and Broadway; University and W. 10th, and 11 were better. The east portions went down in the blast. The west bank was not included, i am guessing it was too close to inhabited property.

I did not realise, ODOT, has a facebook page on the bridge with recent collections of foto linkages. The television stations went where the public was told to go, a Plain Dealer photographer went to the west side, and got the better view [click].

Cleveland made the national news three times last week; first the political convention, then the basketball guy [which the local television wants to only cover], and the bridge. The bridge was the most interesting. I overslept, and missed it by fifteen minutes.

Friday, July 11, 2014

on the basketball player


Y'no the local television "news" has decided to ignore the rest of the world and instead pine and drool over an athlete (no not one in season). Cleveland is a kiss ass town, a huge soap opera about this?

Several things i object to: 'King James' really?, and o yeah, LBJ was president, this guy is an arrogant jerk. I would like to see him with Donald Trump, well, at least the athlete achieved something with talent; Trump's biggest achievement to success was navigating the birth canal.

Stupid media, "he has never been a team's highest paid player". He would have been in Cleveland for the last four years.

Over an hundred have been killed in Gaza, and how many more in days to come? There is trouble in so many places. So many real events and problems, people and press are fixated on this clown?
this morning's screen grab wkyc-3 webpage

Monday, July 7, 2014

bound for glory

Jerome White. Bound for Glory. 2010. Hull Park Cleveland.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Saint Thomas More

DON PEDRO
The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICK
Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your
discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and
the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere
you flout old ends any further, examine your
conscience: and so I leave you.

— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, I. i.
[click]

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

world cup football

I enjoy it. As a casual fan, i have a few random thoughts:

Yesterday's victory by Germany may have saved lives, and certainly property. France beat Nigeria. If Germany lost, France and Algeria would have played; and no matter what that outcome would have been, there would probably have been civil disturbances in Marseilles and other French cities with North African communities.

The US -- Belgium game: i had fully expected the Belgians to win. The hype was getting thick about how good the US team was, and how Belgium skated through their group. Even when the United States has talent, and good athletes (in any sport), the bragging disturbs the rest of the world; the achievement does not live up to the mouth. Belgium was 3-0, the US 1-1-1. Against Germany, Omar Gonzalez as a defending fullback made a couple great saves. Belgium pounded the American goalie, Tim Howard, with a record number of shots. As good as he was, it was only a matter of when something got by him. The team that attacks, and leads in corner kicks, and shots on goal and on target is usually the winner. Sometimes, you need a great goalie; but if you must have a great goalie you are in trouble.

Lionel Messi really impresses me (and most of the world as the best). He is the star on his team, and he passes to his brothers. He made two very beautiful goals: one, a 91st minute winner against a fully horizontal goalie of a great defensive Iranian team (possession 24%), and then against Nigeria with a free kick over the wall of men and into the net.

There is a continental, and hemispheric advantage to be seen.  Argentina has the Pope, why not the World Cup?

The world outside the Americas and Korea has not before seen the referees with shaving cream to mark off the positions for free kicks--funny, and effective. The dance the wall of cheaters have done is now gone. The foam demarcates better than a line in the sand. The only thing that compares, visually, is the wee whisk broom umpires clean home with.

"The beautiful game" is propaganda, it is more like human pinball. The jostling on corner kicks still stinks, but this stupid free kick encroachment has stopped. There is still the fake injuries to gain yellow cards on opponents.

Uniforms: people have come to enjoy and expect to see a country's team in their favorite colors. I have two quibbles (alright three): the referees ought to adopt a standard uniform (like American football's zebra/convict stripes; the same with goalies (perhaps if the team is green, then white or black with a green stripe); and a team should have all have the same shoes, and not that glow in the dark yellow/green.

O, and 0 is 'zero', not 'nil'. Another reason why Univision is better viewing, the Spanish say 'cero'. It is annoying when Americans ape Britishisms. And why does American English coverage hire Englishmen? And the fewer commentaristas, the better.
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postscriptum: What is also great about the football is the clock. The clock goes on. A futbolista is being bandaged on the field, the clock goes on; somersaults, hugs, dances and the clock goes on, and no penalties. If time is wasted on all this, extra time is announced and tacked on; but "4" minutes of extra time is an approximation, it could be 3.52, or 4.23, or 5.15. This is so much better than basketball, where the last two minutes are lucky to be completed in thirty.