A couple of Christmas pictures today from the Tioga County Historical Society's gift shop, Owego, New York.
Dolls - some of these may have come from a shop open in Owego for many years, The Hand of Man, now, sadly, closed due to the owners' retirement.
The same for these Santas. That's what someone told me, anyway.
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Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.
Yes, I love my native United States. But I sometimes wonder what kind of person I would have turned out to be if I had been born and raised somewhere else.
Like, perhaps, Iceland.
Who knows, but with all the times I dreamed of the midnight sun as a child, I may have had a previous life somewhere in the northlands.
The 2017 Great American Eclipse, and its tie with sweet tea and Iceland.
There was last year's Postcard from Iceland, too.
All I need to do to visit Iceland (now that COVID restrictions are a thing of the past, hopefully) is conquer my fear of flying (and spending too much money).
Of all the things that intrigue me about Iceland, about the most intriguing is the Jolabokaflod, the Christmas Book Flood.
I've known about the custom from various Facebook postings, but this blog post reminded me of it.
Can I imagine a country where the holiday season begins with the arrival of the Bokatidindi (Book Bulletin), a catalog of every book published that year in the country? Can a book lover like me even begin to imagine? Maybe it's like the Sears catalogs of my youth but full of books instead of home goods and clothes?
This website discusses what happens next. Basically, the custom is to have their main Christmas meal on Christmas Eve. Along with the meal, they drink Malt og Appelsín (a soft drink that includes orangeade) and then it's time for gift giving. Book gift giving, that is. People give books to each other on Christmas Eve, and spend the evening (and maybe the rest of the year) reading their gifts.
I've read that 93% of the residents of Iceland read at least one book a year, and an Icelander averages 2.4 books a month. I'm not sure what my count is, but I know several bloggers who read a lot more than I do. Not only that, but I've read that one out of 10 Icelanders publish at least one book in their lifetimes.
Now, that's a country I can get into.
Can I imagine a Christmas Eve book exchange?
Would you?
It's Monday and time for music.
Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please!) Our head hostess is Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, and she is joined by the knowledgeable Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and (last but not least) me.
Why
not join our music loving folks? It's so easy. All you have to do is
join the linky above with a music post that contains at least one music
video. If there is no music video, the post may be removed, or may be labeled *NO
MUSIC*.
Each month, we have a guest host. For December, our honorary host is Santa Claus. Santa asks us to post holiday music so we can all dance and have a good time.
I promised some Hanukkah songs for today, but I checked the websites of the Maccabeats and Six-13, two groups I like to feature for my Hanukkah music posts. However, neither have released their Hanukkah songs yet, as far as I can tell. They will probably release them shortly, so today, I'll go with some other selections.
Most of these are not traditional Hanukkah songs, but I thought you would enjoy this mix of educational songs, modern Hanukkah songs, and parody songs.
I don't often feature rap songs but I love the following two songs. First, let's enjoy this remix of Adam Sandlers Hanukkah songs: I bring you The Hanukkah Song 2.0 from Nissim Black and Kosha Dillz.
Daveed Diggs and Puppy for Hanukkah.
I saved the best for last. Six13 and Bohemian Chanukah. A masterpiece that I think Freddy Mercury would give his stamp of approval to.
That's a wrap!
Join me again next week, for more Music Moves Me.
Thought I would join up today with Shadowshot Sunday.
I've been trying out my new iPhone 13 mini, which I need to learn how to use. Call these "noodling around" photos.
My spouse and I walking in a local park December 9 around 3:10 pm with a nearby fence. You have to like the low December sun angle for these stretched out shadows.
These aren't shadow shots, but I thought I would include them.
What else did we see? A dandelion still blooming.
It's snowing today - our first true accumulation. December 11 is a little late for first true accumulation where we live, but I'm not a fan of snow, so I don't mind. We took an exercise walk before the snow started to accumulate and I took this picture towards the end of our walk.
I know I'm not even scratching the surface of what this camera can do.
Enjoy your Sunday. Tomorrow, I will be back with holiday music.
Do you remember Readers Digest Condensed Books?
Earlier this week I had lunch with several women I work/used to work with. One of them had a box on the curb in front of her house filled with books.
"Do you want them?" she asked. I said yes and she seemed so happy I was taking them. She knows how much I love to read.
Here's the box showing a couple of the books.
Yes, I was one of those who purchased these condensed books as a teen (back in the 1960's). I have the box in my house now, wondering when I will look through this and recognize any of the books that I received during my subscription years. I remember that reading some of the condensed versions led me to reading the full books.
I even found a list of books published in the series and their condensed books.
Does Readers Digest even publish these anymore?
They do, although they don't call them Condensed Books anymore; they call them Select Editions.
I'm wondering if my friend was giving them away because she found they couldn't be donated to a library book sale. I know our local library booksales don't accept them. It's strange in a way, because I remember these books being quite popular at one time.
Which brings me to my Thursday post, where I showed a bookstore in a small town in my part of New York State and the book Christmas trees they have in their window. One tree included some books whose pages were carved into art.
I normally wouldn't ever want to see a book carved up into "art" but it got me to thinking of the thousands of no longer wanted books out there. Better to make them into art, I'm thinking, rather than into trash. There are places you can donate them to (noting I haven't verified any of the article I am linking to, but I'm sure a lot of books end up in landfills eventually.
When I'm done with these books I hope that isn't their fate.
They bring back too many condensed memories for me. I wish there was a good way to send them on to someone who would appreciate a condensed book or two.
Now to find time to add them to my to be read pile.
This is part 2 of one of the loveliest sunsets I've seen in months.
(For the beginning of this sunset extravaganza, please see last Friday's post.) Because of some comments, I also want to warn people that the color may not be too enjoyable if you've been impacted by fire - the sky literally looked like it was on fire.
Doesn't the river look like it's on fire?
I didn't have much hope for this particular sunset, but did the sky prove me wrong! I love when the sky surprises me.
Now, I have a little surprise for my readers. I took the plunge (way past when I should have) and am now the proud owner of an iPhone 13 mini. Now all I have to do is learn to use the camera. My new photos won't show up right away but give me a chance and I hope I can get you more captures like this in the New Year.
Joining Yogi and other sky watching bloggers each Friday for #SkywatchFriday.
Let's take another quick visit to Owego, New York, once named "The coolest small town in America".
Since 1976, Owego has had an indie bookstore, Riverow Books. This is one of their traditions:
Christmas trees made out of books!
I hadn't been there since COVID, so I don't know how new this third tree is. The items in the middle of the tree are books that have been cut to make works of art. It's hard to see, but I didn't have a good place to set up the photo as there were people around and I didn't want to get them in the photo.
Next spring, Owego will be even cooler because a second bookstore is opening in the village. It will be called Spellbound Books.
Imagine...a village of just around 3900 people having two indie bookstores.
The town Owego is in (a town in New York is a subdivision of a county), also called Owego, has around 19,000 people, incidentally.
Riverow, (and Owego) incidentally, are well worth the visit.
Normally, my December 7 post pays tribute to the date as the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
I decided to do something a little different today.
I searched the thousands (yes, thousands) of photos on my phone for a photo taken on December 7.
Look what I found - taken on December 7, 2019, in the village of Owego, which I had blogged about last Wordless Wednesday.
Fitting, right?
Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.
This past week, I finished a book called "Our Missing Hearts" by Celeste Ng.
This is the first novel by Ms. Ng I've read. Unlike her other two novels, this is a dystopian novel. Or perhaps not quite dystopian, because almost everything in this book has happened before, in one form or another. This happens to be a genre I enjoy but this book hit a little bit too close to home. It was chilling - a near future United States that is totally believable.
Briefly, this is the plot: Bird (a nickname; his given name is Noah) is a 12 year old boy with an Asian mother and a white father. He lives with his father in a future United States which was transformed by a terrible economic crisis fifteen years before, called simply The Crisis. China and South Korea are blamed (correctly or not) for The Crisis and eventually, anyone who is, or looks like, they are of Asian origin bore the brunt of this popular belief.
PACT (the Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act) is passed by Congress in a bipartisan vote and signed into law 10 years before the events in this novel begins. Among other things, PACT gives the government the right to remove children from any household not deemed patriotic enough. Books are censored, eventually removed from libraries, and pulped. The pulp is then used to manufacture toilet paper. One such book is a book of poetry called "Our Missing Hearts" written by Bird's mother, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, which inspires those who engage in small acts of rebellion against PACT.
To prevent Bird from being taken, Bird's mother left the family and went into hiding three years before the novel begins. Bird's father, protectively, denounces his wife and tells his son to forget his mother. But then a communication comes in the mail....
A memory came back to me.
In 2020, my spouse and I were supposed to go to my 50th high school reunion. Well, not all of it. Not the expensive dinner dance that would have taken place in Manhattan (also necessitating a hotel stay). But rather, I looked forward to an Alumni Day at our school. I ha not set foot in my high school since my graduation, nor had I gone to previous reunions. No matter. Thanks to COVID, the 2020 reunion was cancelled.
There were a handful of people I wanted to see again. One of them was a woman I shared a locker with for part of my high school years. We remained in touch during college and for a couple of years after we graduated. Gradually, we lost touch.
I can't remember what initially attracted us to start a friendship. We came from totally different backgrounds. Me - Jewish, with grandparents from Belarus and from Austria-Hungary. My locker mate was the daughter of Chinese immigrants. My high school, back then, had a lot of Asian students. It has many more now.
Today (based on statistics I found online) my high school is about 23% white and 79% "minority". What would the framers of PACT had felt about that?
I must confess to this: When I started hearing about the large uptick in hate crimes against Asians in 2021, it was just part of the flood of news all of us are subject to. It's overwhelming, the news, if you pay attention to each and every thing. But then, something caught in my mind. It was wrong for me to ignore what was happening.
My thoughts turned to my former high school locker mate and college pen pal more than once, as I saw videos of elderly Asians attacked on the street, some fatally. If she is alive today, my friend has closed in on 70, like me. If her parents are still alive, they are probably in their 90's. All of them are vulnerable in a way that I can not fully understand because my experience is not their experience.
Did my lockermate have children? Grandchildren? What has been their experience?
I walk down the street and my face does not provoke hate. Others walk down the street and face daily harassment or worse.
Under PACT, all of that would have happening openly, with no recourse.
(I highly recommend Ng's novel, incidentally, although it was hard for me to get through some parts of it, and I had to put the book aside for several days more than once.)
It's the first Monday of December, and it's time for music!
Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please!) Our head hostess is Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, and she is joined by the knowledgeable Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and (last but not least) me.
Why
not join our music loving folks? It's so easy. All you have to do is
join the linky above with a music post that contains at least one music
video (if no music video, the post may be removed, or may be labeled *NO
MUSIC*) and you've just joined a group of cool music lovers. Why not?
Each month, we have a guest host. For December, our honorary host is Santa Claus. Santa wants us to post holiday music so we can all dance and have a good time. (I don't think Santa will mind me, next week, posting Hanukkah themed songs for our singing and dancing enjoyment).
For today, I decided to post some modern songs about Christmas. Some of these are covers of well loved songs which I am enjoying.
Lindsay Lohan's 2022 cover of Jingle Bell Rock has such a cute video.
The Offspring (The Offspring!) and their 2022 cover of Bells Will Be Ringing (Please Come Home for Christmas).
Finally, Meghen Trainor and Pentatonix with Kid on Christmas. This 2022 release is so catchy, I will be surprised if it doesn't become a hit.
And that's a wrap!
Join me again next week for more Music Moves Me.
It's Christmas Time in Oakdale Commons.
It could have been so different.
Large retailer bankruptcies. Online shopping. A pandemic.
 |
| There was once an anchor store behind that wall |
But our mall isn't dead, after all. Perhaps, in its own way, our part of New York State is experiencing a Christmas miracle.
Our local enclosed shopping mall, like so many other malls in this country, has faced hard times these past few years. In 2019 it faced foreclosure.
Stores all over the United States have closed. Malls have gone out of business completely in other parts of our country, and I feared that would be our mall's fate.
There is an entire genre (not sure that's the right word, but let's try that) of music playing in abandoned malls on You Tube. (Thank you, John from The Sound of One Hand Typing, for letting me know about this spooky corner of the Internet).
Our mall, currently called Oakdale Commons but originally called the Oakdale Mall, is experiencing major changes. A brewery/brewpub took over space once occupied by a retail store. Another wing of the mall is now a health and fitness facility. Construction in our former Macy's for a Dicks House of Sports (the largest store ever for Dick's Sporting Goods, which originated in Binghamton, New York, just a handful of mile from this mall) is ongoing. It will have a climbing wall and will even have an ice skating rink.
There are government offices in another part of the mall.
Now, an entire wing is being emptied out. Several stores have either closed recently or are being relocated. Rumor has it that a Costco is going in.
Change can be good, but it always brings its own type of stress.
When you get to a "certain age" there is a tendency to remember the good old days. I could recite a long list of bygone stores in that mall, including Montgomery Wards, Bradlees, and so many more.
But the last thing any of us should do is dwell in the past, or think that the way it is is the way it has to be. We have to do the work to break out of that mindset. It's never easy to effect change. But it's necessary to try, if change is necessary.
Don't accept when things are bad.
For some, it's the most wonderful time of the year. For others, it's the time of year when farm markets disappear until spring, and all we have left is our indoor year round farmers market.
Not the best angle, but the entrance was busy and I had to grab a shot before someone opened the door.
Let's go in.
The parsnips are great in potato pancakes.
Let's see. What else? How about local mushrooms?
Or a cup of coffee? It's too bad I can only have a sip or two of coffee; my body and coffee (even decaf) no longer get along. It smelled so good, though.
Finally, celeriac, a root veggie I have never tried. Have you?
November 21 started out looking as though we would have our average sunset. It was cold, and with a circulatory issue I have with my hands and feet, I asked my spouse to take pictures with his iPhone SE 3rd edition so I wouldn't have to take my gloves off.
Once I got out of work, it was sunset time. My spouse and I headed to the local park where we do a lot of our evening skywatchings.
But now, there was a hint of what was to come, as the sky started to color up.
I looked back at the east, and saw a reverse sunset.
To be continued....
Joining Yogi and other skywatchers each Friday for Skywatch Friday
When I heard the news, I was immediately in shock.
Fleetwood Mac singer, songwriter, and keyboardist Christine McVie died yesterday of unknown causes ("a short illness"). She was 79.
Rock and roll heaven is filling up, and for some reason, this latest death hit me harder than some. The songs of Fleetwood Mac were part of the playlist of my life.
On Twitter yesterday, a Stevie Nicks fan site posted this: "The chain is broken today" (this is an explanation).
Here are several of McVie songs.
From 1977, Don't Stop. Such a positive song.
From 1982, Hold Me.
1987's Everywhere.
Finally, a bonus song, a song co-written by Christine McVie with the other four members of Fleetwood Mac - The Chain.
But now, time and illness have finally broken the chain that endured through all the tumult Fleetwood Mac went through in all their years together and apart.
Rest in peace, Christine McVie.
Owego, New York, named (several years back) "The Coolest Small Town in America", has survived a lot, including several bad floods.
But always it springs back.
Let's celebrate the last day of November with some photos I took during a visit earlier this month.
The Candyman Can. (A local chocolate shop is moving into this storefront).
And Owego Stands with Ukraine.
Too many books, too little time.
I sometimes feel as if I've read too many books recently. Some of them are blurring together There are so many good books out there and I have the time.
Let me share three with you.
I've blogged before that book reviews are not my strength. They bring me back to nightmarish school days when I had to write (gulp) book reports. What can I say?
There are several books that stand out, though, and I am nominating them for my personal "best of 2022" list.
1. Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I've read three of her young adult books and this is the first of her adult books I've read. It's a story of two gamers who meet as children and their subsequent life stories, together and apart. Zevin is an avid gamer and I am not. But, from the very first sentence, I was drawn into the book. It wasn't boring for a minute and several parts of it (no spoilers!) left me gutted - I cared about the two main characters and the other major characters so much.
2. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. This is my third of her books I've read. The first, Station Eleven (set in the aftermath of a flu that killed much of the population of Earth), I consider one of the best books I've ever read. The second book, The Glass Hotel, was a quick DNF (did not finish) for me. I just couldn't get into it, despite all the rave reviews.
Although it is connected to The Glass Hotel, you don't need to have read (or liked) The Glass Hotel. I'm so glad I went ahead and gave Sea a try.
Sea of Tranquility isn't a pandemic book like Station Eleven, but I don't think it could have been written without the COVID experience we all had, in our own way, back in 2020.
This book spans over 300 years, and weaves back and forth in time. Only great authors can pull something like this off, and Mandel is a great author.
3. This final book was one I read for the first time several months ago. It deserved a reread because it was one of those books I just couldn't fully absorb the first time around. The fact that I read it as an e-book didn't help. I've never gotten the hang of reading ebooks, especially on the platform the New York [City] public library uses. I don't fall into their worlds the same way as I do with a well written physical book.
There's just something special about physical books, and when I saw this final book at the local library, I immediately took it out.
How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, was a debut book and I never would have known it - the writing was that good. Where do I even begin?
The body of a young girl who died about 30,000 years ago in what is now Siberia is found, uncovered thanks to global warming. Along with the thawed body is a once dormant virus that infects the researchers investigating the find, and from there, it makes its way to the remainder of the world.
This plague isn't COVID, but is a virus unlike any we have experienced up to now. It initially seems to strike children, and this virus causes organs to change into other organs. Death is slow and extremely painful. There is no cure. Some lucky children can get organ transplants or get into experimental programs. The death toll soars.
From this beginning, in various somewhat interconnected chapters introducing various characters and following some of them through time, the book explores themes such as how people adapt to the unthinkable. Culture changes, too.
What I also enjoyed was that a lot of the related stories took place in a non-Western culture.
Were there disappointing books? Yes, several, and perhaps blogging about them will help me decide if they are worth another chance. (One I did finish; another one I am on the verge of abandoning midway through). Just not today.
Read any good books lately?
It's Monday once again, and it's time for music!
Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please!) Our head hostess is Cathy from Curious as a Cathy, and she is joined by the knowledgeable Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and (last but not least) me.
Why not join our music loving folks? It's so easy. All you have to do is
join the linky above with a music post that contains at least one music
video (if no music video, the post may be removed, or may be labeled *NO MUSIC*) and you've just joined a group of cool music lovers. Why not?
Each month, except December, we have a guest host. For November our guest host is Sandee of Comedy Plus. Let's welcome Sandee once more time, and thank her for her November guest hosting.
December begins later this week, and, for the month of December, our theme for the month will be "holiday music". So get ready! In the meantime, Sandee has picked the theme of "Grateful". I'm going to do a little twist on this, featuring songs or artists that have helped me through some difficult times, or times of change. I am grateful for having this music in my childhood and young adult (with one later in my life) life.
Few of these songs are inspirational - they just happened to be the right tunes at the right times for how I felt.
I'm starting off with a song we used to hear every Thanksgiving. Many Thanksgivings we were on the road, traveling to my late mother in law's house, about a three hour drive away from us. One of the stations we listened to always played this song. Our last such drive was 2014.
The song brings back a lot of memories, memories I am so grateful for. If you have about 18 minutes to spare, here is Arlo Guthrie and Alice's Restaurant, from 1967.
If you don't have 18 minutes, here are some shorter songs.
Sonny and Cher - I've Got You, Babe (1965)
Year of the Cat - Al Stewart - 1976.
And that's a wrap.
Join me again next Monday for more Music Moves Me.
We sat, on that day in the mid 1960's, in our Bronx junior high auditorium, in an assembly to find out our fates.
We had taken entrance exams to specialized high schools. Today, we would find out if we had made any of those schools, or if we would be attending our local high school.
At that time, there were a number of specialized high schools one could apply to by entrance exams and/or auditions. The Bronx High School of Science (which I attended), Stuyvesant High School, Brooklyn Technical High School, the High School of Music and Art, and the High School of the Performing Arts, were some of them.
One by one, our names were called.
My ninth grade graduating class was big, as were most all classes in New York City. There were hundreds of us, and it was impossible to know everyone in the room. But, we knew there were a couple of us who were talented - quite talented - in the performing arts. One boy, in fact, already had had some small roles on television, if I remember correctly.
At the assembly, we found out he received acceptance to the High School of the Performing Arts.
What happened once he went on to high school is unknown to me. But many of us later enjoyed a fictionalize version of the High School of the Performing Arts, first through the 1980 movie Fame, and later through a TV series of the same name.
The movie followed eight students through their initial auditions and life in the high school.
One of the actresses in the movie was Bronx born Irene Cara, who played student Coco Hernandez. Irene Cara started her acting career young, appearing on The Electric Company. Cara also sang the theme song for the movie Fame. In 1983 Cara co wrote and sang the theme song to the movie Flashdance, and had a career as actress and singer.
On November 25, Irene Cara passed away at the age of 63 At this time, the cause of death is unknown.
Flashdance What a Feeling.
Gone too soon, her name will be remembered.
Thanks go to the New York Public Library (NYPL) system, one of three library systems in New York City, for this Black Friday ad. (The boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens have their own systems, although their residents can also use the NYPL system I'm not sure that was true when I was growing up in New York City, but it is true now.)
A version of this ad was emailed to me yesterday as I have an e-Card to use their ebook service. It was such a laugh that I found the posting on the NYPL website - a little different but still gives you the flavor.
But wait, there's more! If you are a resident of New York State you can use NYPL's ebook system and take books out This was instituted during the pandemic and is still being offered.
I love libraries. They aren't small businesses but they deserve our support on Small Business Saturday, and every day.
By the way, this is actually a fundraiser (because free is never free) but I would say this is the best Black Friday Library Ad. Here are the terms and conditions (from the web link above):
This Black Friday deal is from The New York Public Library. $0 down,
$0 monthly payments, free returns. Borrow any book for $0 or three easy
payments of $0 plus no tax. Cancel and return titles at any time. No Fee
Guarantee, never pay another late fee. All major NYPL cards accepted!
Patrons who live, work, go to school, or pay taxes in New York State are
pre-approved for an NYPL library card. No spending limit, no credit
check, never maxes out! If you aren’t completely satisfied, return your
books at any time, free of charge.
Love a library today.
I am going to take it easy today. Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the United States, a day to give thanks and visit with family, but it can also be a bit exhausting. Fortunately, we didn't have to travel.
We had our son and one brother in law over for dinner, and a little later, my other brother in law and his wife dropped by. Small, but that's the way I like it.
Wednesday (we can call it Thanksgiving Eve) we took a walk on the Vestal Rail Trail. It has been (for us) warmer than usual, and we've actually seen some blue skies this week. I took a picture of lighting on the dead plants lining this part of the trail.
A reflection in water photo.
Yesterday, Thanksgiving, we walked in the small park near our home.
Finally, right after sunset, in the same park. A lovely way to celebrate the day.
I hope you had a good day yesterday, too.
Joining Yogi and other sky watching bloggers for #SkywatchFriday.
