November 2023

THE BEGINNING:

THE TROGLODYTE SURVIVOR IS CLIMBING OUT OF THE COAL MINE

The troglodyte has survived four months of bone breaks and has been let out to be about! Her splotch streak has caused her car great anxiety; “Where is she, when is she going to drive me? I’ve been sending her smoke signals, AI mental images——all for naught!”

Magically, the troglodyte appears: “Oh No!”

Bottomless Sadness: My older, elderly, ancient car will not turn on. “IT” had not survived almost four months of sitting forlornly on a street desperately hoping anyone, someone, would open its door, press the gas pedal and zoom into the byways and onto the freeways. Hence, the smoke signals!

The troglodyte presses the key for that joyful first drive. She has been dreaming and plotting of a new freeway life. You guessed it. Zero, Zilch, Zippo! She keeps pressing a few hundred times more. Nothing happens, but a sore finger.

THE CELL PHONE

My cell phone and I are on two different orbits with my unparalleled technique——in other words, I have zero confidence, but I dial Triple A. When John arrives his answer breaks my heart. He shall “return” unless/until a bona fide mechanic analyses and repairs its problems. Spending the next twenty-four hours of lamentation has led to a still “dead” car.

24 HOURS LATER

Armed with my tin-lizzie walker with only two wheels because it is light and I can ploddingly fold it to stash in the backseat of my car. (My Tesla walker, slick with four wheels, a seat and storage space is too heavy for me to lift and crimp together by myself).

So, it’s the tin” Model A Jalopy” walker, my purse, a book and my cell phone as I move outside and dial Triple A. Hmm. Long wait ensues, drivers are stranded on freeways and take precedence. I am reading a good mystery, so 45 minutes pass. John, from Triple A arrives. He restarts my grateful car. The mechanic is not close, I get lost;

It’s early Saturday afternoon and his workplace is tucked behind a building on the busy 101 CA Highway. He closes at 3 o’clock. I enter his office, say “Hello”, and smile my friendliest smile. He does not look up from his desk. Silence! I offer my earnest story. It seems to float into space as he continues to write and tell me he has to get his paperwork done before closing, also never looking up. I, on the other hand am in the middle of nowhere with a car that will probably not ever start again. I throw in that I am ninety and could he at least, please, look at my car. The heavens open, he looks up and then gets up. Delirious with joy, I clatter behind him as we make our way to my car.

The next blow, he’s way too busy to work on my car, announcing it’s my electric system. (Dollar signs images descend in vast bundles.) I will not budge even if I have to spend the weekend in his tiny office with about an inch of space for two nights. It is not warm and friendly.

THE VERDICT

An alternative question! “Could I please leave my car to be worked on, on Monday?” “YES!” I think the tin walker, the big purse, the hefty book and my hand holding the cell phone finally got to him. I refrained from my tendency to hug people.

THE CELL PHONE

Oh, for the long ago days when you could actually speak to a human body with a voice who you could understand and who wanted to speak back to you. After calling Lyft, hitting numerous silent buttons, I said good by to my new and cherished friend/mechanic. It was a moment of blood, sweat, and tears as my walker bucked and banged forward on the blacktop while I one handedly approached the highway.

CLARIFICATION

I didn’t mention the broken, cracked surfaces of the blacktop where there was not one foot of smooth surface on this long expanse to get to and from his office to my highway perch and Lyft. I could only clumsily try to guide my walker with one hand. I became the one-handed “walker driver”.

THE DIGITAL WORLD Picture an older, elder, ancient woman standing on a highway that resembled the Indianapolis 500 Speedway holding on to a tin walker, a hefty book, a large purse and a cell phone on a windy afternoon who almost keeps dropping her hefty book. This was hard and it got even harder when Lyft did not arrive, texting me, that I had not put in the correct address and was being charged $6.50. In turn, I had been texting Lyft for over twenty-three minutes about my plight of standing alone on the speedway. The digital world abandoned me.

The day got even longer. There was more waiting, more story, BUT, then came, a storybook ending. On Monday, I delightedly said good-by to my my new best friend/mechanic and drove my car home.

I am still learning, still surviving and still know life is worthwhile. Supporting each other makes it more worthwhile.

AN EVENTUALITY

A “way back” occurred when an artist contacted me and asked me to write a poem for a painting he was using for that year’s Christmas Card. I expected something along the line of a Christmas tree, a Santa or a snow scene, not a sensitive desert scene. I did not expect serenity! Wishing to respect/reflect that quietness of his harmonious painting, it was an honor and a privilege to hopefully embody his artwork.

THE FUTURE

It is a privilege to share my granddaughter’s clear-sighted, perceptive writing as she explores and crafts her teenage world.

Master W.W.S sends you a message…………….

**.

CELEBRATE LIFE!!!

SY’S SALIENT POINTS! My comments in regard to my dutiful “tin walker”are meant to evoke some whimsical or genial humor. It is a beneficial and adjunct addition to my balance at this time. It has value and is an investment!

Huge thanks for visiting my blog! I value your comments.

*Jane Seabrook: A New Zealand illustrator and designer known for her exquisitely detailed watercolor paintings depicting animals caught up in the joy and drudgery of life sharing her rich sense of humor.

**W.W.S. is three months old.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FOR YOUR SENIOR YEAR, DARLING BLAIRE!

JANE SEABROOK* I like to think a bunch of my preservatives encompass ethos, logos and pathos. Ethos refers to persuasion based on the credibility or authority of the speaker/writer, Pathos referring to persuasion based on emotion, and Logos referring to persuasion based on logic or reason.

Because I did, and still do love research, I am returning to some of my favorite researched Designer Giants. They used all the preservatives they could find and even invented some. This is a chance to connect the dots and be enriched by the ethos, logos and pathos of architects Antonio Gaudi and James Hubbell and their preservatives.

Way back, I wrote a design article regarding two ingenious architects. One living, one not. One on a distant shore, one down the road. Many of their design conceptions and philosophies invited comparisons between their masterful inspirations.

We were spending a month in Spain and I had all my preservatives…two washable wigs needed for one bald head from chemo, bags of prescriptions, my favorite hat, (still have it, wear it, terribly battered) and all the other travel paraphernalia.

During our week in Barcelona we encountered timeless Catalonian symbols——cuisine, late night revelry in the land of the Matadors, the distinctive Sardana dance and the architecture of Antonio Gaudi.

If you were to excavate a time capsule, you would find in the architectural characteristics of Gaudi—— Moorish, Neo-Gothic, Art Nouveau and Gothic influences. Parabolic arches soar and float while miniature towers become minarets on mosques that confront tile patterns devoted to flights of fancy. And that is only the tip of the iceberg in his imagination.

The St. Louis, Arch is a Parabolic Arch

The biographer Rainer Zerbst commented, “Gaudi’s life was full of contradictions. As a young man, he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was highly critical of the church; then, at the end of his life, he devoted himself solely to the construction of a single church. Again as a young man, Gaudi liked the glamour of an active social life and had an unmistakable penchant for being a dandy. Yet in old age, ‘he lived a spartan life’.”

The city and culture of 1877 Barcelona was flourishing when Antonio completed his architectural studies. Trade, cotton and iron produced upper classes where the rich liked to surround themselves with artists and writers who often lived under the roof of their patrons.

Senor Guell became the patron of Gaudi and allowed him free rein to fulfill their joint dreams. Guell was a successful brick manufacturer who was not only acclaimed for his wealth, but for his ardor for social reform. He was interested in the growth of industrial cities and engaged Gaudi to design and construct a garden for a residential settlement.——”Parque Guell”.

A visit to Parque Guell shows a wondrous array of “architecture and urbanism dedicated to his fundamental source of inspiration: nature!” A cement serpentine bench covered with colorful broken glazed ceramics enclosed a perimeter of some fifty acres. There was no grading or leveling of hills in the park. Instead Gaudi created cavelike passageways, (arcades) that became a forest of pillars. The administration buildings were topped by fantastical roofs. The recreation area is an art filled oasis of shapes of gigantic proportions denoting what a gifted sculptor was Gaudi. And yet, the park was almost completely built of material found on the actual site.

At one point in 1908 a New York multimillionaire became infatuated with his work and asked for ideas to build and design a New York hotel. Gaudi sketched a building similar in height to the Eiffel Tower with a central tower crowned with a powerful beacon in the shape of a star. Parabolic arches spanned two floors resulting in an auditorium for several thousand spectators. It was never built. Gaudi’s new architecture was not to be in the New World.

But there is architecture in our corner of the world that is equally rich in symbolism. There are sculptural figures accented with illusionary and realistic animals. There are cement plants that blossom… Architecture that is capricious and audacious and fluid.

It is the work of James Hubbell, artist, craftsman, poet, stained glass designer and architect. During a lecture by Mr. Hubbell, he spoke of his inspirations, “the sky on a moonless night, or seeing the wind wave over a field of grass, or noticing the dust at play in a shaft of light, or felt the warmth of another’s hand….someone you cared for. This is where architecture must come from”.

During an interview, I asked James Hubbell if he had personally seen the work of Gaudi and if he felt any of his work reflected parallel forms and textures. He replied he had seen Gaudi’s architecture and the way in which he had been “personally been influenced by the work of Gaudi was in the sense that you could treat architecture like sculpture” And he felt that for both Gaudi and he nature was, and is the primary inspiration.

Two artists that transformed traditional design——the 19th century Gaudi and the 20/21st century Hubbell allow us to participate in adventurous and creative architecture. Both worked in stone as well as iron to create surfaces that flow. These surfaces contain great complexity with intricate mosaics. There is a wide range of artful structures as well as decorative innovation.

And lucky us, because if you’re not packing your suitcase for Barcelona, head on up to Santa Isabel. It’s worth a visit to view James Hubbell’s fantastical organic-architectural house and adjacent studios located in the mountain community of Santa Ysabela, near Julian, CA, 60 miles east of San Diego.

James Hubbell Home

Temple of the Segrada Familia

The ethos, logos and pathos embody the “PRESERVATIVES” of two groundbreaking and visionary architectural humanitarians and the living monuments they created.

Sy’s Salient Points: James and Ann Hubbell have recently moved to a CCRC Continuing Care Retirement Community near Mexico. James Hubbell, when speaking to Marianne Gerdes, executive director of the Ilan-Lael Foundation established by James and his wife Ann: “explained to her that he looks at the challenges in his life these days as opportunities to see things from a fresh perspective.” James Hubbell has Parkinson’s Disease.

Antonio Gaudi began work on the Segrada Familia in 1883 and devoted more than 40 years of his life to the Temple of the Sagrada Família. He became increasingly pious and after 1910 he abandoned virtually all other work eventually secluding himself on its site and residing in its workshop. He was struck by a trolley at age 74 while still working on the Temple and died a few days later. On 7 November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the Temple and granted it the status of a Minor Basilica. It is slated to be completed in 2026, 143 years after its inception.

Congratulations Editor Blaire on winning 1st Place by the AZ Interscholastic Press Association with 34 total awards. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLING BLAIRE & HAPPY THANKSGIVING

by SY

Month: November 2023

CELEBRATE LIFE!!!

PRESERVATIVES!!!