Posted in BY THE WAY, Smooth or Crunchy, tagged Annual report, List of concert halls, Oceania, Publishers, Sydney Opera House, Tools, WordPress, WordPress.com on January 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 34,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
Posted in Amuse-bouche du jour, From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, Smooth or Crunchy, tagged Californication, Dateline NBC, Dracula, Hank Moody, History, Jonathan Harker, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, NBC, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Renfield, Romania, Showtime, Television, Victoria Smurfit on January 26, 2014| 2 Comments »
Dracula (Photo credit: vagueonthehow)
There’s a trend that’s been developing over the last couple of years in the titles of TV shows; I started really noticing it last year and it’s escalating. Some marketing guru must have planted the idea that a ONE WORD title is the way to go. Once a few of the shows so entitled appeared, it was only a matter of time for other stations to follow suit.
It was a great marketing idea; The single word title grabs you right away. It stands out like a naked woman in a crowd. The one word, often itself a powerful word with a strong meaning screams at you to pay attention to me! See if you agree.
Scandal
Revenge
Hostages
Blacklist (I cheated by omitting the THE)
Girls
Southland
Intelligence
Shameless
Elementary
Mom
Castle
Mixology (new)
Resurection (new)
Nashville
Dateline
Parenthood
Community
Believe (new)
Crossbones (new)
Crisis (new)
Dracula (new)
Dracula
Grimm
Hannibal
Dexter
Weeds
Episodes
Californication
Brotherhood
Posted in Amuse-bouche du jour, BY THE WAY, New York Speaks, Only in New York, tagged Apple, Apple Store, Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, New York, New York City, Rockefeller Center, Snow blower on January 22, 2014| 2 Comments »
Yesterday’s snow storm which didn’t even have a name I believe, certainly caused enough havoc in some places. New York which is famous for its iconic landmarks such as the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building and many, many more also has a few new icons. One of which is the glass APPLE cube entrance to their Fifth Avenue store.
A snowblower plowed into one of the walls and shattered the glass all the way from top to bottom!
UH OH!
Photo by Christina@christinagignac
Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York is encased in a beautiful 32-foot-tall glass cube near Central Park.
The Apple Store
Posted in Amuse-bouche du jour, BY THE WAY, Smooth or Crunchy, Thursday's Top Ten on January 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Feng shui Luopan compass (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Gail, ever the source of great blogging material sent me an email that was filled with (some) questionably useful information but fun factoids nonetheless. It came under the title of Money Bags and is supposed to have something to do with Feng Shui and I should pass it on. I’m not passing the email on even though I believe in Feng Shui. My last three work offices have been designed according to Feng Shui and my Kua number!
If for no other reason than to add more (useless?) information to your already information overloaded brain, the following factoids are interesting and I’ll bet you didn’t know…
Posted in From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, tagged Catholic Church, Daily Mail, Ireland, Judi Dench, Martin, Martin Sixsmith, Philomena, Steve Coogan, United States on January 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »
English: Magdalen Laundry in England, early 20th century. Scanned by Eloquence* from Finnegan, F.: Do Penance or Perish. A Study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland. Congrave Press, Ireland, Piltown, Co. Kilkenny (2001). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
With 12 Years A Slave and The Butler sounding the alarm and need for civil rights in America, there was another less-talked about atrocity taking place in Ireland. Across the sea in a convent in the town of Roscrea, Catholic nuns were running a babies-for-sale business.
If you were an unmarried and pregnant young girl in Ireland in the early 1950’s, you would surely be ostracized by your family and sent away to hide the shame you brought down on the family. The pregnancy was the result of a mortal sin, so it was only natural for the family to turn to the Church for guidance and counsel.
Philomena was sent away to the Roscrea Abbey to live and work until the baby was born. The girls were treated as sinners, as evidenced by the denial of any painkillers during a painful breech birth delivery. The girls signed away their rights to the baby and were indentured for years to repay the nuns for taking them in. It is the Magdalene laundries all over again. Childless Catholic American couples bought the babies and took them away to the United States. That’s the back story and the basis for Philomena’s 50 year search for her long lost son, Anthony.
The film is about that search. It was adapted from the book, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee written by Martin Sixsmith. Philomena hooks up with a fallen-from-grace journalist and together they set out to find Anthony who was renamed Michael and adopted by a Dr. Hess and his wife. It’s through Martin’s former Washington DC connections that facts are uncovered, names and whereabouts. The ensuing road trip is hysterical at times. Dame Judi Dench gives us an amazingly hilarious interpretive performance of woman whose mind is as Martin describes to his boss, “I’ve finally seen firsthand what a lifetime’s diet of Reader’s Digest, the Daily Mail and romantic fiction can do to a person’s brain.” Their odd couple odyssey has some of the movie’s best dialogue. As they travel across the big pond and back, Philomena’s unshakable faith and Martin’s (a fallen Catholic) disdain for religion clash. As Lee becomes more serene, more accepting of the situation and all the more forgiving, Martin boils with rage at the injustice, the hypocrisy, the lies and most of all the institutional piety.
To adapt the book to the big screen and to introduce to Michael, the film relied on home movie flashbacks, which was a very effective way to let the audience see Anthony (Michael) grow up, while keeping the focus on Philomena. There has been a decidedly different reaction to the movie. Some see it as another attack on the Catholic Church and others as a heart-wrenching love story of a mother.
I enjoyed the movie even though I had to endure the expected criticism of organized religion by my atheist husband. Being Catholic is not an advantage to viewing the movie, but there are moments that we appreciate all the more for being so.
Steve Coogan is truly wonderful as Martin Sixsmith. Mr. Coogan bought the rights to the book before he even read it and he co-wrote the screen play.
Posted in BY THE WAY, Thursday's Top Ten, tagged clean mirrors, cook cabbage, cut onions, helpful hints, ink spot, lemons in hair, potatoes, remove gum, sprite on January 9, 2014| 3 Comments »
There are so many clever ideas out there and my friend Gail sent me a link to one that had a whole list of what I call Helpful Hints and Good To Know. I thought I’d pick out ten for today and share them with you.
Uh Oh INK !!
Posted in BY THE WAY, Smooth or Crunchy, tagged Bethesda Fountain, blog stats, bundling board, Mayor Koch, Rockefeller Center on January 8, 2014| 2 Comments »
Hosting my blog on WordPress.com gives me a lot of information. A lot of it is really valuable in learning about where your readers come from, which posts were the most popular and more.
WordPress.com sent me a summary of my activity for the year 2013 and I’d like to share some of it with you. The first factoid is the date and post which brought in the most activity.
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 34,000times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
In 2013, there were 164 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1,040 posts. There were 280pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 59 MB. That’s about 5 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was October 13th with271 views. The most popular post that day was Sun and Sand, Sangria and Surfing plus Salmon, It’s Saturday-DAY 6.
Pasha and Fletcher
These are the posts that got the most views in 2013. You can see all of the year’s most-viewed posts in your Site Stats.
Some of your most popular posts were written before 2013. Your writing has staying power! Consider writing about those topics again. I would love to use this important data and write about these top posts but how to do so? I’ve already written about the Bundling Board twice!
139 countries in all! Including Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Russia, India and the Phillipines and Japan
Most visitors came from The United States. Canada & The United Kingdom were not far behind.
My sincerest thanks to all of my regular readers and followers and a tip of the hat to those visitors who stop by to see specific posts; Whether you’re looking for the original Candy Land board or a bundling board, or Central Park snow scenes or Central Park denizens or the Top Ten things to do in NYC at Christmastime or the Top Ten movie mistakes, thanks for visiting.
A Snowy Bethesda Fountain
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
Posted in BY THE WAY, From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, Smooth or Crunchy, tagged Cape Town, Johannesburg, Mandela, Nelson Mandela, Robben Island, South Africa, Soweto, township on January 8, 2014| 4 Comments »
Nelson Mandela
Tonight I saw MANDELA: Long Walk To Freedom. It’s a wonderful movie, complex on many levels. It’s a story of faith, fortitude, loyalty, commitment, frustration, love, anger, destruction. It’s about power struggles, freedom, equality, politics, morality, loneliness, disappointment, ideology, apartheid, peace, war, fear and loathing.
The scenes shot in South Africa were breathtakingly beautiful and having been there myself I appreciated the landscape all the more. The fine British actor Idris Elba embodies the character or Nelson Mandela, he walks like Mandela and he talks like Mandela. He is the central figure, central to the point of reducing the other actors to near oblivion, with the exception of Naomi Harris’ portrayal of Winnie, Nelson’s second wife. She is a strong figure throughout the movie.
This blog is not like other From My Point of View posts in that I’m not offering my opinion on much of the movie or its style. This blog post is for me, I need to confess, to apologize; While watching the movie unfold in chronological order, I was amazed and appalled at my lack of awareness at what was happening on the other side of the world. I was too busy playing tennis at the Country Club, too busy watching my kids soccer games and swim meets. I was too busy focusing so much of my life and energy on becoming a success in real estate and then too busy getting a divorce. I guess I didn’t really read the newspapers or listen that carefully to the news.
I felt like an idiot and remembered the summer Thierry spent with us. Thierry was from France and a couple of years older than Joel but he seemed about 10 years older. I remembered how he spent time at the dinner table discussing world politics with my then husband. He was AWARE of the world around him; True, he and his family did some traveling as many Europeans do to neighboring countries. Their world is so encompassing and I realized tonight more than ever, just how small my world had been. I say had, because since moving to New York City I have become more worldly, more cosmopolitan, more knowledgeable and more exposed to other cultures and races.
At the end of the movie when Peter asked me how I liked it, all I could say with a lump in my throat was, “I was on an island, not Robben, and I’m so ashamed” .
Posted in BY THE WAY, Friends, Ha-P 2 B in OG, New York Speaks, Smooth or Crunchy, tagged brunch, Cibo, Heide, Ocean Grove New Jersey on January 7, 2014| 1 Comment »
Several weeks ago I received a message from Emily, informing me that my dear but distant friend, Heide was going to be visiting in New York. Emily thought it would be wonderful to surprise Heide with a get-together with the four of us. I whole-heartedly agreed and only had a few twinges of wondering why Heide herself didn’t let me know she was coming to New York. I made a plan with Emily to meet for brunch on the day after we returned home from Florida.
We decided that brunch on Sunday would work if I could find a place within walking distance of Grand Central as they would be coming in from Westchester. Cibo was the perfect choice! I made the reservations and communicated the details to Emily through Facebook.
As it turned out, the night after Christmas Heide sent me an email telling me of her presence in town and hoping we could get together. I didn’t see this email until we were on the train heading home. Of course I never read it on Boxing Day because if you’ve been reading this blog you know that night turned out to be a major game night in Florida. I thought about writing back and making up a story like we could be available Sunday evening and thereby throwing her off from any suspicion. Emily had told her that they were going to have brunch with friends of hers but wouldn’t say who it was. Peter advised me not to reply at all so I just ignored her email.
Peter and I arrived early at Cibo and picked out a large booth where I knew we would be able to chat away with some privacy. I was so excited, I hadn’t seen Heide in a couple of years and missed her. When she lived in Ocean Grove, it was so easy to just drop by her house or have her over. We had this great European tradition whereby if she ate with us and I sent something home with her, I could expect the dish or container returned with something special that she had cooked. And vice versa!
The hours flew by at the restaurant, some spent catching up and just picking up where we left off; Time and distance does not affect true friendship. Thank you Emily for sharing your visit with Heide with us, we loved seeing you both.
I understand I have a faithful follower who lives in California and Belgium and so this one’s for you, Heide!!
Heide and Emily
New Year – Old Friends
Brunch at Cibo
Find me on FB
Pbenjay's Blog 
Saving Mr. Banks – A Man On A Mission
Posted in From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, tagged Australia, Disney, Disneyland, Emma Thompson, Julie Andrews, Mary Poppin, P. L. Travers, PL Travers, The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney on January 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »
To say that Walt Disney never gave up on his ambitions is a bit of an understatement. It took 20 years for Disney to convince P.L. Travers to sign over the rights to her Mary Poppins book so he could make it into a movie. How he went about it and what transpired during the filming is one of the two story lines. Watching the machinations of the Disney staff work with Pamela (she insisted on being called Mrs. Travers) and Walt’s passive and gracious acquiescence to her most unreasonable demands is definitely entertaining.
Julie Andrews in her role Mary Poppins
Emma Thompson is superlative in her role as Pamela Travers. She is haughty, arrogant, impatient, rude, blunt, opinionated, humorless, self-righteous and alone! Travers’ dialogue is ingenious. I loved her airs while delivering blistering comments on everything from the weather to the landscape to the cartooning of America and Disney Land itself. She refuses to compromise her ideas, principles and is determined to save Mary Poppins from the clutches of the greedy and way too familiar Walt Disney.
The other story line, (notice I didn’t refer to them as first and second) is the story of Helen Lyndon Goff‘s (aka PL Travers) childhood. At an early age, her family moved to a very out-lying part of Australia, in a last ditch attempt for her father to hold down a job. She doted on her dad, an alcoholic bank manager and a dream-weaver. She was enchanted by his stories and he in turn indulged her in all sorts of whimsy. I found this to be the most compelling part of the movie. Ginty, (a nickname her father gave her), adored her father and as is often the case, was a chief enabler for him. She would do anything for her daddy. His drinking of course leads to his ultimate demise but not before the sister arrived! There were allusions throughout the childhood story which was told in flashbacks, that Margaret Goff’s sister would/could come and make everything right(Winds in the East). And as you might have expected, Helen’s aunt arrives, carpet bag in hand, umbrella in the other. She employed the kids to help clean the house, she nursed her brother-in-law as best she could; AND SHE was the inspiration for the character of Mary Poppins.
Helen Lyndon, took her father’s first name as her own, and wrapped herself as tightly as she could in a persona that protected her from the world and the loss of her beloved father.
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