WE CARE, WHEN WE REALLY DON'T: A USPS Saga

On June 25, 2024 I packed a box with 3 books for my daughter and grand daughter who live in Memphis, TN. The next day I took it well wrapped to the Palm Springs main post office. I wrote books on the cover to get the book rate as together they weighed 3 lb. 16 oz.  The box included the following books:

Probably they totaled $50-60.00. So I didn't insure them. I mean what could go wrong, right? When I called my daughter a few days later she said the books didn't arrive but the box did. This is what she received from a caring USPS:

Not exactly what I sent. AND, this is not the first time this has happened. A few years back another book I sent to them was lost. This package came back to me sans book. Someone between Palm Springs and Memphis must like books and is too cheap to buy them.

"We Care" like hell. In fact mail service has been deteriorating since about 2017 when Louis DeJoy, a huge donor to Trump's campaign was appointed Postmaster General by the 45th president. His stated goal is to privatize the post office, an American institution since it was created by the Second Continental Congress in 1775, even before our Revolution. Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster.

The post office department was established in 1792 establishing postmasters across this nation. Being appointed postmaster was a plum job with good pay and often was a reward for party support  DeJoy follows a long list of questionable appointees in our history.  In fact DeJoy's salary of $301,000+ rivals the President of the United States who makes $400,000.

To be fair however, the cuts and slimming down started under the previous postmaster.  It was DeJoy however who closed processing centers, removed mailboxes and ordered new gas powered mail trucks rather than electric vehicles the government was mandating. In fact it was widely believed he did everything in his power to delay or stop mail in voting in the 2022 election. There weren't irregularities at the  polls, it was the bags of undelivered mail hidden or attempted to be blatantly destroyed. 

Service has definitely slowed down as well. A letter that arrived from Memphis say in three days, has recently taken 16 days IF it arrives at all. I have proof. I now date stamp all my mail.

I don't have a good history with USPS, especially since moving to Palm Springs. Finishing a divorce I had to send notarized papers, Priority Mail, from Palm Springs to my lawyer's office in Century City, Los Angeles, CA, a distance of 122 miles, door to door. It took 9 days. I could have driven there in half a day despite the horrendous LA traffic!

Then a few years ago the birthday present I sent my sister was stolen from the McIntosh, NM post office. I didn't believe her until checking her story I read about the robbery in the Albuquerque, NM newspaper. This begs the question of how secure mail really is?

I see First Class stamps are going up yet again from 68¢ to 73¢. Paying more but getting less seems to be a new American trait. Am I wrong? Go say to the grocery store and see for yourself. Or, eat out. You blame the President but never the corporate Republican CEO's that are doing this.

If DeJoy is REALLY trying to cut costs, let's look at what the "Franking Privilege costs taxpayers. For those that don't know many government officials are allowed to send mail to their constituents for free. It seems each Congressman gets a yearly total of 300,000 franked letters while a Senator gets 540,000 a year. They said in 2015 this costs taxpayers $8.3 million. It seems the average cost in contested districts runs about $172.00 for a vote for unsafe districts and $63.00 a vote for safe districts. Let's look at this figure. I would question this at 68¢, the cost we taxpayers pay for a first class letter for "1" ounce. Calculating the cost at "real" prices we pay that comes to :

300,000 x first class rate of 68¢ = $204,000 per Representative x 435 Representative = $88,740,000.00.

This figure alone is 10 times what they said. Wait there's more1

Senators 540,000 pieces x .68 = $367,200.00 x 100 Senators = $36,220,000.00 for a grand freebie total of just Congress of  $124,960,000.00. Remember out cost is climbing to 73¢ July 19, 2024. Better stock up on those forever stamps now. Christmas is around the corner.

Another money draw that clutters up our mailboxes with cheap mailings (10¢ cent on average) has been the proliferation of non-profits begging for money.  You support one and another 100 pleas arrive. And don't get me started on catalogs. I get more than a 100 a month.  Sure I have ordered from a few but 100's? No. If they all paid their fair share there would be a lot fewer and the USPS would be healthier financially.  Look up the salaries of non-profit CEO's and catalog owners. You will be amazed. It's legal snake oil.

What's missed by the powers that be is it costs as much to deliver a free or non-profit letter  or catalog as a first class letter. Repeated damaged mail and 16 day delivery times are unacceptable. Maybe it's time for the postmaster general to be an UNDERCOVER BOSS and see what's really happening!

You want to cut losses then make everyone pay their fair share. It was once the American way!

   

Do Movies Design The Lives We Live?

 I have loved movies since I was a child. My parents apparently did as well because I can't think of a weekend  before my sister was born that we didn't go to the theatre. And, back then, most movies theaters had a double feature. Can you imagine that today? Anyway, we saw them all. A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, Ester Williams, Ma & Pa Kettle, Gene Kelley movies along with some black and whites. We saw Doris Day, Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, James Dean, Elizabeth Tayler, Charleston Heston, Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum. However, I sincerely believe they have the power to change us and have.

I remember going  to see a movie and was surprised to find there was a double feature. I don't remember the movie we went to see but the "B" movie was MONEY BALL and I remember it still. It shows, you just never know. Brad Pitt and baseball from a story by Michael Lewis whose financial books I admire. What a combination! ALL movies used to be double features. There was a cartoon and news of the world too.

As I enter my 78th year soon, I have become infatuated with movies I saw in my youth. In fact I have purchased their DVD's for the reason much of what is offered on Netflix or Prime I would never watch and oddly Prime charges for movies that are, as we say, long past their prime. 

A case in point. I got a hankering to see CHARADE with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. I remembered the scene in the church where one of the dead man's "friends" stuck a huge pin in his hand to make sure he was dead. Everyone in the theatre jumped! To "rent it on Prime was going to cost me $4.99. Really? A movie made back in 1963? As luck would have it I stopped at Big Lots to get something and stopped at their DVD shelf and found CHARADE for $3.00. Not only did I get a movie I wanted to see but I got it cheaper and it was now mine!

That started a search for other movies I had seen in my teens, 20's and 30's. There was DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, BLOW-UP, James Bond movies and so much more! 

I have also become more and more interested in classical music and
recently wrote about it. Where did classical music go? I surmised it went to the soundtracks of movies. Watching AMADEUS I was struck by a Mozart piece that has become synonymous with the movie ELVIRA MADIGAN a tale of star crossed lovers that took Mozart's Piano Concerto #21 in C Major and made the second movement, the andante, the pivotal sound of the movie. Considered on of the most difficult pieces to play it has forever become enshrined as Elvira's music. 

The 60's and 70's were a prodigious time for movies, especially foreign movies. Fellini, Bergman, the British New Wave which produced TOM JONES with memorable eating scenes, BLOW-UP with an enigmatic murder and of course James Bond. Fellini's movies introduced America to a Italy few knew about and was so different from home. I can remember Bergman's SEVENTH SEAL being so glum that after watching it I just wanted a gun to end it all.

Stanley Kubrick took movie's to a whole new realm. PATHS OF GLORY  and DR. STRANGLOVE made war anything but honorable, sex scandalous as shown in LOLITA, freedom's call honorable in SPARTACUS and forever changing science-fiction with 2001: A Space Odyssey where cheesy Buck Roger's special effects were dismissed forever.

Bringing Up Baby

On closer examination, movies have influenced our lives in ways we rarely notice. BRINGING UP BABY is a classic Grant-Hepburn movie from the 30's, a laugh out loud comedy farce. A close look at the set used here and in many other movies during the 30's and 40's showed homes few Americans had or would ever have, possibly. Look carefully at 50's
movies and advertisements. Recognize anything? The homes they portray, as the ideal, in the those 30's movies were just about what all our friends had when I grew up in the 50's. The differences were very apparent when I visited or stayed with college friends in the 60's whose families lived on farms in Oklahoma.

Contests were held nationwide for the 
perfect "Blanding" house

MR.BLANDING BUILDS A CREAM HOUSE with Cary Grant paved the way for the Draper house in 1950's MAD MEN. As MAD MEN so clearly showed those returning from the war wanted more. They didn't want a farm like MA AND PA KETTLE, they wanted modern furniture and electric appliances! Living in Palm Springs, surely one of the cities most devoted to "Mid-Century" living, you see in real time how everything from the past was rejected. Trim, sofas and chairs had clean, no frill lines, roofs became V's rejecting centuries of A designs. Things had to be modern, clean, NEW!

Who can forget avocado green, or harvest gold stoves and refrigerators, or pink toilets and bathtubs in bathroom with square tiles? We had a friend once whose had pink fixtures and tiles in a bath. She painted the walls pink and added pink curtains. It was horrible! It was like being inside a Pepto Bismo bottle. However, how many soldiers and war brides had ever had such luxury before when an outhouse with a Sears catalog for paper and a hand pump dominated a kitchen?  The series MAD MEN was entertaining and showed post war living again so different than many of those people grew up with in the 20's, 30's and 40's. Hollywood binge watching during those era's created a demand of what they were seeing on the screen.

2001 changed everything from
sci-fi to useful gadgets we
are using today! It predicted 
cell phones and wi-fi

No one wanted the Kettle house anymore

Movies, for ill or good, do influence us in ways that we may not completely understand. It has made us aware though of luxuries we may never have heard about and shown us ways of living we may never achieve. I can remember showing my Peace Corps kids images of America. One scene caught the entire villages attention ... clothes lines strung across the tenements in Brooklyn. Where I saw poverty they were stunned at ALL the clothes the people had.

As movies have shown, maybe trained us, to want to live, movies also have the power to show us how to think. After watching Ryan Reynolds HOLLYWOOD on Netflix a few years ago and still available, it gave us the idea that if only Hollywood had been more progressive, would the Gay issue be such a topic today? Especially when we realized how many actors
were in the LFBTQ+ spectrum? Race relations, the impact, importance and reach of religion? Visual images and actions take on a whole different meaning when transferred from print to motion. Movies have POWER. As we seeing, almost daily now, it be used for good as well as for bad!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

Designing In The Time of Chaos

Around June 4th of this year I noticed a water leak in my bathroom. It was a Saturday and I had an appointment so I put some towels down and would attend to it when I got back several hours later.

Where it all began, below the black
pipe inside the wall

When I returned the towels were soaked and there appeared to be even more water. Since it appeared to be coming from the toilet I checked that but could find no leaks. Then noticing there was water around the water heater in a cabinet across the room I checked that. It seemed to be fine too. There was water but where was it coming from? Finally on Saturday evening I started looking for plumbers and found one that would send someone the first thing Sunday morning...at  an additional price, of course.

The plumber came as promised but he too could not find the leak. He gave me the name of a leak detection company that I called and they promised to arrive early Monday morning. Since I control my water in my and the condo unit above me, I could not turn off my water! I had already used up just about all my towels so did a load just in case. I ended up using them too.

The villain. What a 40 year old
pipe can do

On Monday the leak detector came and after checking all the usual
suspects put on his headphones then got me to tell me where he thought the leak was. Because this complex was finished in 1983, and asbestos was used for insulation, he was afraid the walls had asbestos insulation. I told him when we ripped the kitchen out before I moved in, "what insulation? The walls aren't even straight." Still he would not touch the walls so I got my retired contractor neighbor to help and we opened the wall with a hammer. No insulation but sure enough between the master bathroom and walk-in closet walls, where the water entered my condo, beneath the slab were bubbles of water. We found the leak. The leak detector man said his crew could not come out until Thursday. As this was Monday I told him I could not wait that long. I couldn't turn off the water either. He called a friend that could come that afternoon, jackhammered the slab to free the copper pipe with a hole that was leaking, replaced it and used a quick cement to repair the slab and we were done.

Where it all began

The water had gone into the walk-in closet and under all the laminate flooring in my master bedroom. You could  visibly see the warped boards. I thought it would dry out and laughed when my robot vacuum bounced across the bedroom floor. 

Finally I realized it was NOT going to dry so called my condo insurer, AAA. They came, inspected the damage and an assessment of the damage was made and work began.

As I write this I am living in the chaos of box hell for the seventh week. They sent a crew that came and boxed up just about everything in the bedroom and the walk-in closet. I had to fight to keep  my bed because there was no other place to sleep and because of my various medical maladies it was impossible for me to move. The amount they gave me to do that would have been good for about three nights here in Palm Springs, summer or not.

This is the living room now for 7 weeks

I was reduced to one chair in the living room in front of the TV. Boxes and furniture filled my living room. I had a bed but little else I could use. Then the oxygen machine arrived and so I had the bed and machine resting on the slab. As they removed soaked drywall more things were moved. Then they found black mold, some of it in the bathroom cabinet I used every day and stored my medicines. That was torn out. As they moved closer and closer to the new kitchen I installed before moving in, they found more black mold on the wall behind the kitchen. That renovation cost me plenty and I cried at the thought. Now seven years old, I would never match the cabinets and I worried about my quartz countertop.

They came to spray for black mold and areas that had some cleared up in a few hours. Everything from the floor up four feet where they had removed drywall was sprayed, covered in plastic and blowers dried the walls and studs before anything could proceed. I have been asked how long do you think the leak occurred and how long did you live with black mold? I have no answer but it has to have been for awhile.

Black mold in bathroom cabinets

The design part was that the studio, my converted second bedroom, was not affected. Since I couldn't leave most days because someone was here on and off, I painted. Boy did I paint! Ten new items in fact. As I write now, the new floor has been put down, the walk-in closet shelves have been replaced, they are hanging doors and floor trim is being replaced. New bathroom and medicine cabinets have been ordered and should arrive next week along with a plumber as I have changed the counter from one to two sinks.

Not being able to do much except be home and yes, wait a lot, is the time to get to work. As they tore down, pounded and packed I hid in the "studio" trying a variety of styles ... Pennsyvania Dutch, Mola, Federal, anything that would keep me busy as I painted and listened to audio books I got at the library. A natural gourd birdhouse became a cactus, several star shaped wooden shaped birdhouses became a kind of abbreviated Mola design where I felt the design with it's intricacies were highlighted without all the background design. Tiny windmill birdhouses (why do I do them? they take as much or more time than bigger ones to paint) became an homage to Americana or Pennsyvania Dutch design. Because of their dark backgrounds all had to be painted at least twice - once in a opaque cream color so colors applied on top would show. Otherwise the black or burgundy backgrounds would have eaten up any transparent colors. I know and learned that lesson early on. Don't fight it. Put the design on (I finally learned to use a white pencil), then a cream coat which is opaque and finally the color you want.

Studio where art and medicine boxes meet

I started a new project today that will take me days to finish. No matter. I have, if lucky, a week to go but will probably be in the vicinity of two - three more weeks. Then it will be time to move everything back to where it once was and a golden opportunity to cull the herd. I was surprised at how much I had accumulated and what better time than trying to put it all away!

I am surprised at how contractors work. While they put back wooden molding and doors that they removed it takes someone else to put back the slices of tiles that were molding in the hall and living room. So it sits undone and I cannot move the TV back and attempt to recreate my living room. I guess the good news is that items wrapped in the bedroom can now be unwrapped. My desk can be put back in it's old position, chairs unwrapped and placed to be used again and the computer, printer, scanner and office paperwork moved out of the dining room. "Be still my heart!"

RED STAR BIRDHOUSE  with Mola designs

I know I shouldn't complain. I could be in tornado alley, or hurricane Florida or today Maui where fires have killed so many and so many have lost everything. However, small leaks such as this have killed as well. We need to be vigilant and be thankful that we are still alive.

TO THE STARS BIRDHOUSE

BLUE STAR BIRDHOUSE, above

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

What Happened to Classical Music?

My answer to this would be it went and found it's home in the movies, TV, cable.

What you say? No way? I beg to differ. And, believe it or not, many pop, rock & roll and blues stars would probably agree. The discoveries in music over the centuries paved the way for modern music. The music of the Baroque period was like Casey Kasim's Top 40 in our own times. Remember a Verdi opera in the 1800's was no different to that audience than say the soap ALL MY  CHILDREN is to ours. Only we rarely sing now. For that we have musicals on a stage with real people. Is that so different?            

Most musicologists would define our music eras as:

1. Medieval 1150 - 1400
2. Renaissance 1400 - 1600
3. Baroque 1600 - 1750
4. Classical 1750 - 1830
5. Early Romantic 1830 - 1860
6. Late Romantic 1860 - 1920
7. 20th & 21 st Century 1920 until today.

However, I feel that this list isn't complete. There were other influences from South America, Ireland,
especially from Africa that first changed American music and then the worlds. New combinations of notes and syncopation made old boring sounds new and vibrant again. Some of America's greatest sound smiths listened to and then borrowed these rhythms and created much of our most treasured music of today.

As I was dealing with medical issues and insomnia the other night, I finally played classical music from my iPhone to my HomePod to put me to sleep. As I laid there I begin to note the number of pieces (I always put music on shuffle to mix things up) that appeared in movies. I can never, ever hear "The Beautiful Blue Danube" without seeing in minds eye the Pan American shuttle in its ballet to dock with the space station in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. In fact while set in the future, the movie came out in 1968, Kubrick used only classical music to define his story. AMADEUS tells the story of the rivalry between the Austrian Mozart and the Italian Salieri for the ear and patronage of the emperor of the Austria-Hungary Empire. The film is filled with snippets of music from them both and was a surprising hit. What's not to like about Mozart?

Kubrick was not alone. Though the haunting bars of ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA begin 2001, many other directors relied on classical music for their own movies most notable moments. This list includes THE SHINING another Kubrick movie that uses both Bartok and Berlioz to underscore the horror of that movie. What about THE KING'S SPEECH using Beethoven's 7th Symphony, RAGING BULL with Mascagni's opera Cavalleria rusticana, Disney's FANTASIA entirely classical music set to cartoons, THE BIG LEBOWSKI using Mussorgsky's "PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION," or PLATOON'S use of Adagio for String's, used so poignantly at both FDR and JFK's funerals.

Why is it that so many killers in the movies always have the time to listen to opera arias?  I think we are still writing classical music only we now call it the movie's "score." As Disney so clearly showed in his 1947 Masterpiece FANTASIA, classical music can and does tell a story. Movie and TV music today does as well.

I ask you to consider any of John Williams scores. He is one of the most prolific "classical" score writers of our times. All you need is the first few notes of the "Imperial March" to know this is STAR WARS. But variations of this theme and others play through the entire movie(s) telling it's story in the quietest moments, social moments, action moments. Turn off the sound and see if it continues to have the impact. Motion and music go hand in hand.

Just the first three notes of "Jaws" gives theatergoers goosebumps, or how about HARRY POTTER or INDIANA JONES or SUPERMAN? Did you know that William's even wrote the score for the pilot of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND? A whole bunch of Boomers can hum that one.             

As I pointed out, TV was also not immune. What about MISSION IMPOSSIBLE or Mancini's PETER GUN? Or his movies that included THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY', PINK PANTHER and CHARADE that all spawned #1 hits on the hit parade. Again, turn off the sound and the movie just doesn't have the impact it does with music.

Even Pop sounds made it to the movies. GREASE, THE GRADUATE, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, LOVE ACTUALLY as well as Bio pics of Queen and Elton John. The Beatles acknowledged their debt to classical music and several albums were created that attempted to tell a story.  Their movies A HARD DAYS NIGHT and YELLOW SUBMARINE were storylines told with music. Shouldn't we consider that opera?   

I just saw the new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie, Part 1. While I think it's an action movie looking for a plot I paid special attention to the music, blocking it at times. Try it. When you see a car chase, whether you know it or not it's the music that rev's you up. Try it. You will see.       

I urge you the next time you stumble on a classical music station not to quickly turn away. Remember if it wasn't for that music, those notes and bars, music as we know it would be very, VERY different.    

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!                                                                                                                             

When The Simplest Design Is The Best Answer!

I don't know about you but when there is a problem I think we look for the most powerful solution. Men, ESPECIALLY men, seem to think that the more powerful anything is the better the solution. I mean seriously how many city dwellers need huge jacked up trucks? Men want to "dominate" the problem. Living here in the desert, summer time brings bugs ... lots of bugs, especially fruit flies or gnats. It seems that no matter how careful you are there they are as well. I am learning to wash everything before I put it away.

Your first reaction to a bug infestation is to get a bug spray. The stronger the better. And, of course the BIGGER the can the better. You're gonna get those bugs once and for all. Now is not the time to skimp.

After carefully covering food or anything your lips might touch, the last thing you do before bedtime is give the kitchen a good spray. In the morning you see a few dead bugs but just as many live ones flying around. I guess the initial spray gets those flying around but somehow, somewhere they manage to come back like, well, zombies!

You  can imagine how frustrating this is. On top of the bug invasion I had a water leak between the walls in  my condo that led to about half of the condo being torn apart to get rid of wet drywall and black mold. Is this the cause? I honestly don't know. The wet drywall was removed, the black mold mitigated and everything is now dry. Now to get everything put back together again, the world of boxes emptied and things put back in place. It seems the bugs took advantage as this is the worst infestation ever.

The next step for me was to try fancy electronics. They had some deals during Amazon Prime July Sales so I got what appeared to be tightly rated zappers that you can place inside your home. I have them in every room now. But, do they work?

Since the kitchen seemed to be the room most affected I put two, one on each side of the kitchen. They plug into any outlet and shine their blue ray of death to the

world, or so I hoped.

Hum, I saw a few fried corpses but not very many all considered that the kitchen is as dark as a cave (no windows) at night and their blue glow is clear for me to see and is supposed to be like a searchlight for bugs. In summation I would have to say, the light is still searching for victims.

As luck would happen, while I was going through my latest copy of CONSUMER REPORTS, there was a note on the best way to get rid of those pesky kitchen gnats that I had never heard before. They gave us three options: 1. leave a few drops of wine in a wine bottle and make a funnel so the bugs can get in but usually can't find their way out. They have a delicious death I guess. 2. was about the same with a beer bottle. 

However, it was number 3 that intrigued me. Get a small dish, pour in some fruit juice, I used orange juice, cover it tightly with plastic wrap and puncture it with small holes.

I used a toothpick to put the holes in and left this on the kitchen counter. Nothing. Then I took a fork and give the plastic a few more jabs. Within a few hours I saw a bug in there. Here is two days later! As I write this I haven't seen a bug flying around anywhere and trust me they had spread ... kitchen, dining room even as far as the destroyed master bedroom.

I discovered the best place to leave it was literally on the kitchen sink. No matter how hard you try, sinks and drains manage to attract bugs. By putting this mixture literally next to the controls seemed to have the strongest effect.

As a kid growing up on Portland, OR, I can remember when the snail population was getting out of control and eating everything in sight, we would get Dad to give us a bit of beer, put it in a dish and leave it outside. Within a day or two the dish was filled with drunk, dead snails. You have to wonder if we design things to overkill when a much simpler solution is at hand. This worked for me. Give it a try. It will cost you just about nothing! Remember, this is environmentally friendly - no toxins, no sprays just a little orange juice in a small reusable glass container with a little Saran wrap.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

The Wonders of the Digital Age

 I am 77 ½. The wonders of the digital age didn't hit me until I was in my 30's, when I bought a used Apple C computer, unlike my children who for all intents and purposes have never lived without a computer.

Two events in the past two days have made me feel ancient and, well, unnecessary.

The buttons on top are NOT easy
to see. Trust me.

For a wonderful price last Christmas COSTCO had two Sonos SL1 speakers for sale at essentially half price. I bought them because Geek friends go into rapture talking about their sound. At about the same time I got rid of my Spectrum Wi-Fi and went to T-Mobile's 5G Wi-Fi network. Oddly, even at my advanced age, it went smoothly except for  my Amazon Alexa that would never connect. Since I am a Mac man through and through, I got rid of Alexa.

Setting up the Sonos speakers was difficult as well. I did all the App on my phone said to do and they would not connect. Why they use Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth and connect as easily as my $39.00 Anker speakers do, I will never understand.

Then a day or so later I discovered a symbol on my phone that showed the Sonos speakers. So I could play music on my Homepods in the bedroom and the Sonos in the living room at the same time, or so I thought.

Reading in the living room a few weeks ago I realized that only one Sonos speaker was playing. With the light on, showing it was on, the second one didn't play a single note. A neighbor came over to use a printer on Father's Day and when he was done I asked if he was familiar with Sonos speakers. He was. So I asked if he could get the "dead" one to work. On my iPhone he pulled up the App and, just like me, was unable to make it connect.

He called another Geek friend and the friend told him what to do. Nothing. Then he was told to unplug the unit, hold down a button on the top, plug the power back in and let it go through a series of flashing lights.

Again nothing.

Then when my friend said there was an infinity button on the back on top the on/off switch, the friend who was researching Sonos online said, unplug the unit, hold the infinity button down and plug in the power. After a series of flashing yellow, green and white lights a new page showed up on the phone. It guided him to ask where is the speaker, do you want to pair "both" speakers, etc. Replying affirmative to all inquiries there were more flashing lights and suddenly Vivaldi was playing on BOTH speakers.

Now tell me, how is one to know? THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE SONOS INSTRUCTIONS THAT SAID THIS IS WHAT YOU DO!

When I was in my 20's, even into my 50"s I could set up a sound system. I had a Harmon Karden receiver, a fancy turntable, huge speakers and was able to add cassette players and even a multiple CD player to my receiver with no fuss. Now I can't even connect speakers that play music off my phone.

I just got off the phone with tech support at CVS.com. They are giving me a very hard time for me making sure I can get the meds I need. In the store,  or holding forever on the phone to talk to them they urge you do do everything online. I have never been able to connect and today, after 45 minutes talking to the CVS tech guy I still cannot get online. I was given a case number and told that someone will contact me IN 2 TO 5 DAYS to get this matter resolved. I almost forgot, I was locked out of my system, the same system that doesn't work because I tried to many times to get into it. Is this CATCH-22 or what?

So, I now can either wait on the phone forever, leave a call back number they never return or get in the car and do battle at the counter behind 10 -15 people waiting in line. The other day we waited 15 minutes in line as all their cashiers tore the place apart, resembling a scene from a Keystone Cops comedy, trying to find a customers prescription. They finally had to fill it again because what ever system they use doesn't work. Rather than serve others in line as they made a search we all waited.

There is even a line now for those ordering meds and refills online. I've noticed there is never anyone  in that line. I wonder if they are as shut out of the system as I am. The  only reason I go to CVS is because that is where my medical provider makes us go. No one here, doctors and patients, likes CVS.

Have we become too dependent on computers? I might venture a guess that Southwest Airlines passengers during Christmas thought so. When a system goes down, as it does more and more often, the world, literally, shuts down. We have nowhere to turn to and everyone has forgotten how to do things the old way, you know with pencil and paper!

I watched Apples latest WWDC conference and I already dread iOS 17, the new iPhone operating system. It can do all kinds of whiz bang things, things I do not want and will probably hide the things I now use on a daily basis. Who demands this stuff? What ever happened to user friendly? All I can say to any senior is befriend a late teen or 20+ year old. Let them set up your equipment for you! Otherwise you will be wandering the wilderness without a digital clue!!!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

 Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

The GOLDEN GIRLS Revisited

 One of the perks to being retired is that you have the time to do things you didn't when you were younger and working. I have been haunting the Palm Springs Library's vast DVD selection and watching many of the shows shown here on PBS but were created for England's BBC. I find that many of their shows are vastly superior to what is produced here. I highly recommend FOYLE''S WAR and GEORGE GENTLY.

However, pursuing the stacks a week ago I happened upon Season One of THE GOLDEN GIRLS, a show I often missed. It came on TV in September of 1985. I had a daughter born in July of 1985 and a hell on wheels son of 4 at the time. I didn't see many of the shows even though it had a seven year run and won many, many deserved awards.

While the show is now 38 years old I first noticed that clips of funny scenes from GIRLS have been shown on Facebook, scenes so funny you got a good belly laugh now, all these years later.

So, I picked up Season One and was prepared to be disappointed. While some shows, like I LOVE LUCY have stood the tests of time, many others haven't. What is more important, having no commercials to break up the story line, you get a very different perspective on a show's flow.

I remember the first time I watched a season of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND sans commercials and realized the mother really was a pain in the ass. She meddled in everything, coddling her sons more like a wife than mother.  Deborah was right.

But I digress. Watching GIRLS I realized that this was the first time on public television that women were allowed to express their feelings regarding sex ... sexual feelings they have, sexual feelings towards men and voice that they don't always (the toilet repair episode) need a man to get something done. That was heady stuff back then and paved the way for shows like SEX IN THE CITY. All these years later this is heady stuff today! Witness how men are telling women how they should control their bodies!!! I think we thought we were past all that. Apparently not.

Each of the characters in their own way voiced their feelings. Sex starved Blanche, played by Rue
McClanahan, now a widow whom all felt would like take on the fleet during fleet week in Florida and not the least shamed to admit it as a Southern Belle. Dorothy, the amazing Bea Arther, whose husband left her for a stewardess the age of their daughter still willing to date and find a man who treats her with respect. Ditsy Rose played by funny funny Betty White whose memories of St. Olaf drives everyone crazy.While she still adores her deceased husband's memory, she too is willing to date men. And the character Sophie, the Italian mother of Dorothy is both pithy, summing up all their travails, even she gets her chances to date as well. No other show even came close to this in 1985.

It also shows us that while times change, things also remain the same. That women today are still battling many of these same issues all these years later shows that vigilance of past successes is never as secure as we may think. The battles women had in the 60's, 70's and 80's for work, sports, careers, sexual freedom, even military careers, were all the children of mother's who during the war years provided the backbone work force of the US Arsenal that won World War II. While many look fondly at the 50's as the Golden Age, there were many women who did not. They were still feeding on the freedom they had and proved they could do just about anything a man could do.

GOLDEN GIRLS fed on that line of reasoning in a comedic way that still had a heart of steel beneath. They were not afraid to address the concerns of these women,  women everywhere, and while we laughed they often had a point. For me, as a man, I only truly see the point now.

I urge you to watch these shows, again if need be! As for me, I plan on getting Season 2 the next time I'm at the library! I find that I still have much to learn.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

 Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

TALKING TO STRANGERS: Unburdening Our Regrets

A few weeks ago I finally picked up and read Malcolm Gladwell's book TALKING TO STRANGERS. Like his other books such as BLINK that talks about how we make decisions often in the blink of an eye or OUTLIERS that discusses if you put 10,000 hours into something you become a master. Master? Yes, a Mozart or Bill Gates. I entered the world of a trifecta of strangers in books and movies and the nightly news that seem to only talk to strangers. 

 Gladwell's books seem simplistic until you scratch a bit below the surface. STRANGERS attempts to address how we talk to each other, friend or foe and create a society that we try to live in, lies and all. I might add that today, as opposed to my youth, we both DON'T talk to each other today OR listen! In fact, that we won't talk to each other directly, face to face could be the biggest problem this nation faces. The book makes you think and I think hopes that before your open your mouth, consider carefully what you are about to say! 

Then the other day I watched, over two days, the Japanese film DRIVE MY CAR. Directed by Ryûsake Hanaguchi it won an Oscar for Best International Film in 2022. A long 3 hour movie (best watched over two days as I did) it tells the story of an actor/director who loses his wife at a young age to a cerebral hemorrhage. He feels guilt because he never knew what she wanted to talk to him about before she dies. A year later he is hired to direct UNCLE VANYA at a theatre in Hiroshima and is told that he is not allowed to drive but must allow a driver to drive his car. For car buffs this is a cherry red Saab Turbo  in mint condition. Hesitant, he allows the young woman to drive him after a trial run. Things get iffy when the young man Kafuku saw having sex with his wife applies for the play. While a young actor he is given the part of Vanya much to his surprise. Kafuku never lets on he knows the young man's past history. However, the young man in an aside after a dinner, beats up a man taking photos of him and during the dress rehearsal is arrested for the man's death. Confronted by the committee on continuing the play with Kafuku as Vanya, who knows all the lines, or his refusal to act and shutting down the play he pleads to think about it. 

He gets in the car and orders the driver to take him where she grew up. Then secrets are revealed. He tells her of his day spent not going home even though he knew his wife wanted to talk to him and when he arrives finds her almost dead. If he had returned earlier he might have saved her. The driver, on her part, tells of her childhood, being raised by a single abusive mother whom she let die when their home was buried in an avalanche. Going to the house he sees the destruction and feels her hurt and anguish on full display. They both grieve for what was never done.

Then my book club picked Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize book of short stories, INTERPRETER OF MALADIES. Reading the chapter with the books title it tells the story of an American, East Indian heritage family on a trip to India. They hire a driver to take them to a famous temple a few hours away and while they go they begin to talk. The driver, who gives tours only on weekends, has a week job his wife calls "medical assistant" but in reality is a translator to a doctor whose patients often speak different Indian dialects. The American wife, who appears either unhappy or bored becomes interested. The driver, Mr. Kapasi. takes an interest in her and has hopes to remaining in contact even giving her his address. This hope is soon shattered when at a last stop, before reaching their hotel, the wife reveals to Kapasi as they watch husband and children walk away that she has a terrible secret, even worse than not loving either husband or children. One of the children is not even her husband's but the child of her husbands best friend who spent a night visiting them. Kapasi is taken aback and asks if this was so secret and no one else knows why she is telling him? "Because you are an interpreter!" she says." The reader and Kapasi both wonder, interpreter of what? What advise could we give? In despair, he has none.

I found this an interesting dilemma. Why would I find three items that discuss the same thing? It certainly isn't a design of finding out why we tell secrets. I do know however, that many of us do. Who hasn't on a train, plane or bus told another things you would never tell your partner, spouse, friend or parent? There is a kind of anonymous pleasure in revealing something, taking it off your chest. Clearly the wife in INTERPRETER feels that the burden of her eight year old secret is relieved when she passes the burden on to another.

Is that why we do it? By giving a secret away we relieve ourselves of it's burden? It reminds me of the scapegoat where ancient Hebrews would pin secrets on a sheep or goat and drive into the wilderness. The animal was thought to take away all the guilt and shame of the past year. I wonder if the secrets we reveal have any impact on those we give it to? Clearly in these stories it did. And, I get the feeling it relieved them of their guilt! However, while you feel relieved, do we pass it on? What do you think?

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

Thank you for visiting my store! Please be sure to visit on a regular basis or contact me at KrugsStudio.etsy.com. New birdhouses, craft items, photography and canvas paintings are added all the time. Please tell your friends, artists or anyone who appreciates local handcrafted items about my store.

If you have the time and are interested about how art and design affect our lives, PLEASE check out my blog, KrugsStudio.blogspot.com. I discuss how art and design effects our lives, often in more ways than we can ever imagine. It covers a wide range of topics, not just art but does look at design and how we design our lives each and every day. Comments and ideas for future articles are always welcome. 

Reflections On The Academy Awards

 Shortly before this year's Academy Awards an OP-ED piece appeared in the Los Angeles Tims that caught my eye. It asked the question, "Are Too Many Oscar pics too moody for you?" Clearly she had not seen an Ingmar Bergman movie.

In the piece Virginia Heffernan discusses the fact that even in color many of the nominees looked drained. Here is the article:

But after the Oscars, and I didn't see them all, I did reflect on them. American movies for the past few decades have been little more than rehashes of an original premise that goes on year after year. ROCKY morphs into ROCKY 51,  where they battle each other in wheel chairs? STAR WARS 235 where the great grandchildren of Hans Solo fight the grandchildren of Darth Vader. You get the picture. This leads me to the discussion of this years nominees:

1.  TOP GUN:MAVERICK. This one WAS a stretch. Twenty years later, really? For an action film it was heart pounding but, and it is a BIG but, we've seen it all before.

2. WOMEN TALKING was truly an original, gem as it may be. Mennonite Women in Bolivia were given cow tranquilizer then raped by their men. After the mens arrest the woman have to decide whether to leave or not. As I watched I could not help but think of men in this country attempting to control the bodies of women. There is a line from THE KING AND I where the king says, " it's alright for the bee to fly from flower to flower but NOT flower from bee to bee."

3. EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE is a fantasy and reality for the 1,000's of immigrants that come to this country. I have Chinese friends and hear and watch their struggles to make sense of what happens to them. It was a brilliant ploy to focus on the IRS and the dehumanizing processes it uses. Trump paid $750 in  taxes the year I paid over $8,000. I'm a year older and certainly a great deal poorer. No matter what was said Michele Yo and Jamie Lee Curtis deserved their Oscars for playing the every woman to the Tramp's everyman.

4. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN was certainly one of the grimmest movies I have ever seen. That a friendship could go so horribly wrong and take the twists and turns to its bitter end ... well, it's not a world or friendship that I would want to have. To me it made no sense, yet it certainly was original and not American.

5. TÁR tells a sad disintegration of a brilliant female conductor who thought too highly of herself as she explored the music she so deeply admired. I didn't feel she was so evil as obviously others in her medium thought. I felt the young man who cared less for Bach and was into "modern"  music still had a lot to learn. But, as in every generation, the young have no time for the past. And I question if that is why societies around the world are in the moral morass they are in as they forget the past only to have to rediscover it again.

6. I didn't see ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT as I had read the book and seen an earlier movie. While well intended to remind us about the evils of war  (from the previews) an even gorier version was made to remind us of this fact. Nightly news reports of Ukraine bring this fact home to us every day.

7. AVATAR I also didn't see. I didn't much care for the original and didn't plan on spending 3+ hours more seeing its sequel, another sequel years away from the original. 

I also didn't see THE FABELMAN'S, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS or ELVIS. The first two weren't shown locally here long, if ever, and I grew up with Elvis and have spent an entire day at Graceland seeing everything you could ever want to see. Biopics tend to gloss over the less desirable aspects of the person and blow-up the known. As a Boomer Baby, almost, I will never forget his first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show where they would not show him below the waist!

I love movie's and have built up my own DVD collection because you always CAN'T see it on Netflix or Prime. I had a wild hair to see CHARADE recently with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. It was a $5.00 rental on Prime. Five dollars for a 60 year old movie? A few days later I was Big Lots and looking through their DVD items found the movie for $3.00. Not only did I get it cheaper, it is now mine to watch whenever I please!

I was lucky that my parents loved movies. Every Friday or Saturday from the second grade on we would go. I saw NIGHT TO REMEMBER and cried when the Titanic went down, saw all the Esther Williams swimming fantasies, SINGING IN THE RAIN and in the 8th grade saw PSYCHO a movie I couldn't get through again until last year when terrified of the shower scene, wrapped in a blanket like a mummy, I sat through the movie. I still remembered the college guys behind me screaming like girls!

Movie's can be a significant force in our lives. It can show the best and the worst of humanity. It can uplift like the recent RRR or it can bring us down as SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. As a movie lover, I may not and should not agree with say Rotten Tomatoes. I have found what the "critics" like or dislike is often at odds with the general audience and myself. A case in point was the movie DROP DEAD FRED. It was considered a terrible movie by Siscal and Ebert.  Desperate for something to watch something when my kids were small, I was shocked to discover I could identify with Phoebe because in many ways I had a mom like that as well. While I never had an imaginary friend like Fred I did have an imaginary world like Jack Lemon's DAD who escaped to his imaginary world to escape his harpy wife.

We all have movies we love and those we avoid. In a testing, it was discovered it only took a few first bars of movie themes for the listener to identify the movie. Movies can be an escape or they can reflect our lives and often solutions and pitfalls to our own daily lives. Yet the past few years have been staggeringly sterile, a collection of Marvel or super hero tales with no end. That's why I enjoy both the Palm Springs Movie Festival and Cinema Diverse where films from all over the world are shown and we get a glimpse of other cultures and ideas. Often a foreign film will be made in America but rarely with the same impact as the original because it has to  be morally correct. THE LAST TANGO IN PARIS  was a perfect example. A widower meets a man in Paris after the death of his wife and they become lovers. Too scandalous for Americans, the male lover becomes (to me just as scandalous) an underage female and it went on to titillate Americans the way LOLITA had. 

Finally, I would like to remind you that movies and the world's they create are still "designed." Once watching the extras on the movie MONSTERS INC. they showed all the errors and problems with the software to create their "monsters." It was at the moment I realized just how much a movie, a cartoon takes at least 5 years to make, is created, designed if you will. 

In this vain I urge you to look for original movies and don't accept more of the same old thing!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!