Elia Kazan

by Scirish

I have been reading an autobiography of Elia Kazan…..brief history… he was the director of: On the Waterfront, East of Eden, Streetcar Named Desire, to name a few. The man behind these enduring movies was a conflicted soul both in his boyhood life and his professional and married life. He was a boy that his Father deemed worthless, as he had no desire or talent for the family rug business. He was gawky and unattractive in his youth. When he entered his teen years he had all the angst of a boy, but also had to come to terms with being a bit lopsided “down there” because of a case of teenage mumps. He did not come into his own in his career easily. He started on the Theater stage although he wasn’t sure he liked acting. He studied with the “Group Theater Company” which is where he picked up the nickname “Gadget” because of his talent with stage management. It is also when he joined the Communist Party. Now please remember, this was about 1934, the depression was rampant, and the Communist Party was embraced by many, as a solution to the terrible ills that were plaguing the country. About 18 months later, Elias Kazan formally resigned from the party. His resignation was due to a dawning recognition that “The Party” was not about “freedom” or “independent thinking”, He dared to step out of the boundaries and was chastised publicly in a meeting. During and after that meeting, none of his “party” friends would meet his gaze. He felt that he made the right decision to resign.

Fast forward to the 1950’s… From Wikipedia

Kazan remained controversial until his death for testimony he gave before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, in which (after previously refusing to do so) he provided the names of associates from his days as a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America in the 1930s.

In his autobiography you can just hear the conflict he still has about this. He originally was not going to name anyone. He was expecting the summons, even talked it over with his studio head and backers (by this time he was a golden boy, with not only movies that were extraordinarily successful, but successful plays on Broadway as well) He says in his book that if he didn’t name names he would never be able to work again, and if he couldn’t work he would have died. He also says that he talked to his closest friends and they already knew they were being investigated, so they were not going to be upset about him naming them.

All that changed when he did actually name names….He became a pariah… people that had curried favor before actually crossed the street to avoid him. Playwrights pulled their plays…Movie backers disappeared. The amount of hate directed at him AND his wife and children was astronomical. In fact in 1999, he was given a lifetime achievement award and people that were not even born when this all happened booed him.

I am not sure if he did what he did out of really feeling that the Communist Party and their teachings were inappropriate and bad for the country or if he just did it to survive, but he certainly did pay for his brief foray into unacceptable politics.

What do you think? Was he really convinced that the Communist Party should be thwarted, or was he saving his butt? Should he have named names or kept quiet and hoped that he could still work? Did he deserve the award?

MIND YOUR MATTER

by Scirish

I know it’s early, but grab your coffee and a pen and paper. Ready? Go to the link and see what happens.

click here

I’m sure all of us have had those moments when we just “knew” what the person we were talking to was going to say. Or, we have had other people finish our sentences for us. Why does this happen? Are we really reading minds?

According to Psychology Today, we are, in a way. “Every day, whether we're pushing for a raise, wrestling with the kids over homework, or judging whether a friend really likes our latest redecorating spree, we're reading each other's minds. Drawing on our observations, our databank of memories, our powers of reason, and our wellsprings of emotion, we constantly make educated guesses about what another person is thinking and feeling. Throughout the most heated argument or the most lighthearted chat, we're intently collecting clues to what's on the other person's mind at the moment. "It's a perceptual ability I call mindsight," says Daniel Siegel, UCLA psychiatrist and author of The Mindful Brain. "It allows your brain to create a map of another person's internal state."

That got me thinking; (very quietly of course) do we have a defense against this “mindsight”? What if we don’t want another person to know what we’re thinking? I believe we alter our physical clues, such as tone of voice or body language to throw the other person off track. But what if we couldn’t? What if we all could read minds? Would we be kinder, gentler people? Or would there be havoc and mayhem? What do you think Owls? If you had a choice, would you want to be able to read everyone’s mind? Would it make a difference in your choice if you were the only one that could do it? I just “know” there are going to be some interesting responses.

What’s That Smell???

by Scirish

I have always had an overdeveloped sense of smell. Sometimes that can be a good thing, other times, not so much. It is amazing how certain smells can trigger a memory. For instance, the smell of hot tar reminds me of riding my bike in the summer as a child. The smell of burning leaves triggers memories of Halloween.

Some interesting facts courtesy of “The Smell Report” (seriously, that’s what it was called): “Our smelling function is carried out by two small odor-detecting patches – made up of about five or six million yellowish cells – high up in the nasal passages.

For comparison, a rabbit has 100 million of these olfactory receptors, and a dog 220 million. Humans are nonetheless capable of detecting certain substances in dilutions of less than one part in several billion parts of air. We may not be able to match the olfactory feats of bloodhounds, but we can, for example, ‘track’ a trail of invisible human footprints across clean blotting paper.

The human nose is in fact the main organ of taste as well as smell. The so-called taste-buds on our tongues can only distinguish four qualities – sweet, sour, bitter and salt -all other ‘tastes’ are detected by the olfactory receptors high up in our nasal passages.”

I had heard before that smell was a big part of taste, so I conducted a not so scientific experiment. I put on a pair of those flesh colored nose pincher plugs that one of the kids had used for the pool (did I mention that they pinch?) and cooked dinner. I made one of my favorites: Pot Roast. Usually, when I cook Pot Roast, I am absolutely starved by the time it is done. I have been anticipating all day. Well, I kept the nose plugs on throughout the cooking and also when I ate, the Pot Roast still melted in my mouth, but I couldn’t TASTE it! I took them off and voila, yummy! I think that I shall use the pinchers as a diet aid!

I think that for my next trick, I will try tracking human footprints. If you see “Woman poses as a Bloodhound” in the headlines, that will be me.

So, Owls, how is your sense of smell? Do you have any fond “smell” memories? What about smells that you strongly dislike? (Hate is such a bad word, but Liver would be an example for me.) Feel free to talk amongst yourselves; I have some tracking to do.

Hair we go again!

by scirish

I recently got a new haircut and have alternately loved and hated it. It seems the weather has a direct correlation on which it is on any given day. I had wanted a medium to short all one length bob that would look casually messy even right after swimming, something I didn't have to fuss with. It didn't work as, according to the hairdresser, my hair wasn't the right "type". So I got long layers. The layers seem to have activated a mini hair rebellion. Sometimes it swoops back elegantly, others it flips, curls and squiggles and out come the hair instruments of torture.

I have always been conscious of how my hair looks; a bad hair day will ruin a good mood. I have cried over bad cuts and cried harder over bad perms. I'm not sure why this is so important to me. I think that it may be because, although I have little control of other aspects of my looks, I feel that I should be able to control my hair?

My hair obsession is not confined to just my own either. I notice other women's hair, both the good and the…well…not so good. I find my self thinking, "Oh honey, you would look so much better if you _____ your hair". Maybe I'm just a hairdresser wannabe, but I believe it goes deeper than that. Could it be because of the whole "crowning glory" myth?

Car's

Car's

by scirish

I have always been enamored with cars. As a little kid I was sure that all the big trucks were mine…they all had my initials on the front.

My first boyfriend's father was a mechanic and the boyfriend had a fledgling body shop. I learned how to tape the pieces that should not get painted and to enjoy the end result.

I moved on in life, got married and we had to share a car. I never liked it. I finally got the "extra" car and felt resentful, but it was better than a bus. Then I bought my first car on my own. Oh…what a feeling…My name, my insurance (oy)… But it was all mine! I had freedom. I learned to take care of it on my own and to listen to it. When the sound of it changed, I wanted to know why. Where was the new clink, rattle or roll coming from? I learned because it was mine and had a direct affect on how independent I could be.

It's odd, but I do think the car you own can tell a lot about what you are thinking about your life. For instance, I have had a sporty car, an expensive sporty car, an Omg, no one has this yet car, a crappy, how does this even run car, and a run over everything in its path car. None of which are in any particular order.

What do you think? Do you like cars? Do you have a favorite? Do you have memories concerning cars? (uh oh)

The Place Where We Live

The Place Where We Live

by scirish

I'm not sure where that phrase comes from, It's not grammatically correct, but I'm sure I have heard it before. Maybe a book or movie?

Anyway…I spend way too much time thinking about obscure things…and I was thinking about if where we lived makes us who we are…did I mention obscure?

I've lived all over the place; Dad was a test engineer for Boeing. We moved a lot. The places I remember were MA, CT, FL, UT, PA, CA, DE. When I got married, I lived in DE, MD, VA, TX and Germany. During these travels I got to see a lot of the US and parts of Europe. I would like to see more of both.

It wasn't always that way. When I was a kid, it didn't really bother me to move that much. Until I became a "tween". Then I was an odd man out. Everyone else had grown up with each other. I was a perpetual new kid.

In my late teens, early 20's I lived in DE and MD. People say that isn't in the south, but don't say that to the people that live there. Because of all the moving, I have no accent, but that just means I sound odd anywhere that people do have one.

In MD and DE I sound northern. In MA (after a drink or two) I sound southern. Who knows when I sound German J What I like to think I took away from all the moving is the best of all places. I could list the good and bad parts of the south and the north, but they are just generalizations, and those, although they exist, are bad.

When I went back to college here in the north, I had a class in which we were talking about stereotypes and this women who was my age apologized for thinking all people from the south were stupid because they talked and moved slower that people in the north. I was rather shocked, my then husband had been telling me what a hard time he was having at his job at Sikorski (building aircraft, no less) because of his accent and I just could not picture that happening.

When I lived in the south, the question you got when meeting someone for the first time was: "Who's your family?"You were judged on the past performance of family members.That was intimidating enough, but, if you moved down there in the last 20 or so years, you were an outsider.

I know nothing about how Midwesterners or West coasters (or beyond…turtle?) interact with each other or outsiders. Are there any preconceptions you have faced based on where you live/lived? East Coasters, Northerners? Canadians? Do you have preconceived notions about people from other areas? (it's ok, many people do, until they go there) Commence lively discussion please….I would really like hear about the place where everyone lives.

Creativity!

by scirish

Creativity

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to creativity and how it affects the feeling of fulfillment.

I have tried to do many things over the years; they just went bad very quickly.

I mean, how many unfinished hooked rug/pillow thingy's can one person have?

I tried embroidery…I finished one thing, and I finished that because I wanted to give it to an older friend who loved that kind of stuff and it would mean something to her. She could have done it herself in half the time..

I tried painting water colors too…I ended up with more water than color and made a mess out of the whole house in the process.

I tried writing and couldn't keep my own attention.

I tried knitting, I still have the scarf that is an inch long and has been ripped out at least five times. The yarn is starting to pill.

I tried making my own clothes….a gunny sack looks better.

I love going to flea markets and tag sales and decorated my house with "finds". I'd like to think that it works.

I started making jewelry; I'd like to think that it works also….

I think all these missteps were experiments in finding something that would "round out" my life, to balance out the linear thinking me. I don't know if it worked, but even with all the disasters, I had fun exploring/discovering my creative side ….I am a walking example of there being something for everyone


What are your stories? Have you had crafty disasters? Successes? How important is being creative to you? Or is it not important?

Intuition or?

today our daily blog
is from scirish

Intuition or??

by scirish

I’m sure everyone has had those moments. The ones when you knew something was going to happen and it did. Or the moments where you said “This has happened before, but where do I remember it from?” What are they, in your opinion? Are they intuition? Are they shards of a past life? Are they are they simple coincidences. Or could they be an assimilation of facts that you didn’t even know your mind was gathering?

Whatever they are, they happen frequently. The most recent instance, for me, was rather disturbing. An old boss of mine was grievously ill with cancer, my sig other still works for him and had told me how many times he asked about me. My relationship with this boss was contentious and tumultuous, so much so, that I had no real desire to resume contact. I finally, grudgingly sent an e-mail, months ago, stating I was sorry he was so ill. I was rather apprehensive about getting a reply, and when I didn’t, it was a relief. I just assumed he was not pleased with the tone of the message and decided not to answer. I hadn’t thought of it in months. Until yesterday morning. I was just lying in bed, waking up and thought: “I guess he will never answer me” a half hour later I found out he had just died. Why did I think of that e-mail today, the day he died?

This is rather a macabre example of the phenomenon, but it does seem to exist, whether it’s knowing someone is going to call before they do, feeling certain an event that you have no control of is going to happen or getting a jolt about, or a shard of, the future or people, places or things that are not in your normal thought process.

What do you think it is?

Would you marry for money?

our daily blog is a question,
something for us to ponder
it is from Scirish

Would you marry for money

by Scirish

This was a topic for teens in the local paper.

I was amazed by some of the answers and thought maybe it would be interesting to see what we thought about it as adults.

Most of the teens said they would have to “like” someone to get married and money would be a bonus. Some said that they and the person they married would have to be equal money earners. The ones that broke my heart said that they didn’t care about what the other person did as long as they didn’t have to “live in a box on the street” or “dumpster dive” all their lives. Most of these kids didn’t know what love was. “Like” was ok for a marriage. One girl said she didn’t want to get married because she didn’t want anyone tying her down and she didn’t want to share any money she made. It is a subject that most of us were taught not to talk about, but we do think about it and apparently so do kids.

So, what do you think owls? Do we put too much emphasis on money? Not enough? How does money or the lack of, affect your life? Do you worry about your kids and money? How do love and money interact? Or do they?