Miscellaneous

So many things to talk about.

First I must say good-bye to Darren McGavin and Don Knotts, both actors I remember from my long ago youth. Thank you both for all the entertainment. Good-bye to Mr. Nervous and Barney Fife, and good-bye to Grey Holden, Mike Hammer, and Carl Kolchak.

Finished the book I was reading "The Devil's Cure" about faith, death, cancer cures and cults, wrapped in an action suspense novel.

Betsy wrote a poem this morning:



INTERSECTION

white snow

green road

red light

stop.

this is a silly poem I composed at the intersection of Green and Harvard, Sunday, Feb 26.

Betsy Coss

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And a poem by Jack Blanchard :

TODAY I WENT OUTSIDE.

By: Jack Blanchard

Today I went outside and was surprised to find the real world.

The sky was exactly the color of my monitor screen,
the sound of the birds was in remarkable stereo,
and the dogs, cats, and people were cleverly animated.

There were no pop-ups unless you count the butterflies, and they carried no advertising.

The entire display was completely wireless, which was fortunate,
because I could find no wall plugs on the horizon.

There was an odd sort of email.
It was made of paper, and delivered by a grown man in shorts.

I was amazed to find that I could chat with friends without typing!

I sat on the front steps of my home page, opened my brown bag, and enjoyed a lunch of Spam and cookies. After several hours it all became dark. so I assumed that it had crashed,
and tried to restart it. I gave up after waiting almost all night.

Although the real world is quite slow, and probably an obsolete version,
I plan to go outside and attempt to reboot it again some time.

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And a book I'd like to read:

Winged Victory: Altered Images : Transcending Breast Cancer
by Maria Marrocchino Art Myers Photographer


This new book of photographs of semi-nude women and their partners presents a remarkable portrait of breast cancer survivors, of which there are 1.6 million in the US. These photographic subjects are portrayed not as victims but as women of elegance, strength and sensuousness who have transcended their disease and resultant surgery. The women in the book range in age from their twenties to over eighty-three years. Accompanied by original poetry by Maria Marrocchino and subject written vignettes, these women redefine their self-image: breast missing, altered and reconstructed. As Dr. David Spiegel, the nationally recognized specialist in the therapy of women facing life-threatening illness notes in the foreword, "...they present their bodies and themselves with humor, sadness, vulnerability, honesty. They challenge us to look beyond what is missing, beneath the scar. They evoke admiration: of their beauty and their courage. They do not hide their loss, they transcend it."

Art Myers is not only an art photographer but also a physician who specializes in preventive medicine and public health. Having experienced breast cancer in members of his own family, including his wife, he began to see the disease in a new light and undertook this photographic project to show that for a woman, the loss of part or all of her breast need not be a threat to her being.

In addition to the artistic nude photographs of thirteen different women from a variety of backgrounds there are meaningful personal vignettes and beautiful poetry by Maria Marrocchino. Some of the photographs show women with significant others. The women present their bodies and themselves with humor, sadness, vulnerability and honesty.

This book with poetry written by a woman who posed for Spencer in a group pose and as a single,about breast cancer survivors, would be of interest to me for many reasons, foremost because Betsy is a breast cancer survivor.

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And finally some thoughts on the small shrine we found near the intersection of Green and harvard yesterday. We had seen a large boulder with a plaque on it from the street many times. Yesterday we went to investigate and found it was a verse from John(sorry i did not copy it) and that it seemed to be a bit of a shrine in that someone had placed fresh flowers on a cross fashioned from twigs by it, and the was a box with "mom" written on it and several stones and one or two small statues. I will have to go back.