Ramblings of a Menopausal Broad

Tag: Miniatures

Seven Things I Love (9-20-2021)

September 21, 2021 / / 0 Comments

  1. 1. This Painting by Katsushika Hokusai, circa 1832 – I was fascinated by this piece of art when I first saw it. I must admit, I haven’t seen a lot of paintings of waterfalls so I don’t have much for comparison, but what I found most wonderful was the way the artist showed movement, both at the bottom of the waterfall and in the waves.

It may not be easy to see in the image below but if you go to this page there is a copy of the piece where you can enlarge different sections of the painting. You can double click on the image to enlarge it and then use the cursor to move the view.

P.S. I decided to look up to see what paintings there were of waterfalls and there are quite a few but I am unfamiliar with all of the artists. Which could explain how I haven’t seen any previous to this one. You should take a look, some of them are equally impressive.

2. This Micro-Documentary about the Liverbirds, One of the First Female Rock Bands – I’ve never heard of the Liverbirds, have you? (And it’s pronounced LYE-VER BIRDS.)

It’s infuriating that generations of women have had to make the choice between a career or a family. Wait, scratch that. Looking at history as a whole, the majority of women did not even have the option of a career. But in the past, oh, maybe 100 years or so, they sort of did. But of course women who chose careers were expected, unless they were in a lower income bracket, to stop working if they got married. Can you imagine what things would have been accomplished if women had been allowed to work?

3. This HUGE ASS Log Cabin – Sad that it burned down.

"World’s largest log cabin". Portland, Oregon, USA, 1938. Built in 1905, burned down in 1964. from interestingasfuck

4. These Firefighters Working to Protect ‘General Sherman‘ – With all the floods on the east coast, news of the fires in California and the Pacific Northwest have fallen off the “front page.” But it doesn’t mean they have burned out. One wildfire hotspot has sadly turned out to be the Sequoia National Park. Sequoias are among the longest living trees in the world, most of them live hundreds of years. “General Sherman” is the oldest single trunk tree on the planet. It is believed to be between 2,200 to 2,700 years old. There have been a combined total of over 43,000 acres of Sequoias burned so far.

Firefighters, like so many of our public employees that get little notice, are real heroes.

Here’s a bigger view:

5. This New Book on Miniature Eye Portraits – Believe it or not, I’ve been obsessed with eye miniatures for years. I can’t believe they are publishing a book! Now, before you go “ewww” this is weird, the idea behind them was that lovers would send portraits of their eyes to one another so that they could have keepsakes and reminders but only they would know the person so well that they could identify them by their eye. It was to keep the relationship private or secret. Read this article to find out more.

6. This Astronomical Clock in Prague – it’s over 600 years old! I’ve been fortunate enough to have been to Prague twice, but both trips were well before smartphones. I’m sure I took plenty of photos but I have no idea where they’d be now. We’re talking mid-1990s. But two things I remember vividly are the Charles Bridge and this clock.

7. This Baroness von Sketch Show Sketch – LMFAO every time I watch it. SPOT ON!

P.S. And here’s a little follow up from last week. And I’m weeping all over again!

Word of the Week

Quote of the Week

This week I’m going with a poem rather than a quote – it was so good I had to share it. Of course traveling right now is not easy but once this damned pandemic is over we should all get back to traveling the world!

Try to travel, otherwise
you may become racist,
and you may end up believing
that your skin is the only one
to be right, that your language
is the most romantic
and that you were the first
to be the first.
Travel, because if you don’t travel then
your thoughts won’t be strengthened,
won’t get filled with ideas.
Your dreams will be born with fragile legs
and then you end up believing in tv-shows,
and in those who invent enemies
that fit perfectly with your nightmares
to make you live in terror.
Travel, because travel teaches
to say good morning to everyone
regardless of which sun we come from.
Travel, because travel teaches us
to say goodnight to everyone
regardless of the darkness
that we carry inside.
Travel, because traveling teaches us to resist,
not to depend, to accept others, not just for who they are
but also for what they can never be.
To know what we are capable of,
to feel part of a family beyond borders,
beyond traditions and culture.
Traveling teaches us to be beyond.
Travel, otherwise you end up believing
that you are made only for a panorama
when instead inside you there are wonderful landscapes still to visit.
– Gio Evan, poet and songwriter. Translated from Italian.

Seven Things I Love (5-3-2021)

May 4, 2021 / / 0 Comments
  1. 1. This New Rollin’ Wild Video – The first new ‘Rollin’ wild’ film short in THREE years. And was it worth the wait? I think so…. I laughed my buttootie off! Have watched it about a dozen times so far, laugh just as hard every time.

2. This Perfect Man – He really does exist! The White House decided to rebrand Doug Emhoff as “Douglas Emhoff. Apparently they believe the formality is more suited to his position and sounds more “grown-up.” I’m going to guess that all the adult men who go by the name Doug disagree with this assessment. As one late night comedian pointed out, Bernie goes by Bernie and not Bernard and no-one dares to not see him as grown-up and serious. Let’s just hope and pray that the White House doesn’t tell “Douglas” he has to cut back on the PDA! (The Vice President is SO lucky!)

[Thanks to Ann for this one.]

3. These Breathtaking Still Life Photographs – it’s hard to believe they aren’t paintings. If you click on the photos it will take you to each photographer’s website. Or click on the link below to see the original story where I first ran across these works of art.

[Found on ChristieRealEstate.com]

Italian Plums After G.G. 2015 by Paulette Tavormina of New York
Pronkstillife With Pheasant by Jeroen Luijt, who is inspired by the Dutch Old Masters found in his home town of Amsterdam
The hyper-natural yet accessible Reviviscere, part of the Azahar series by Julija Levkova

4. This Podcast about Florence Nightingale – It checks all my boxes: a woman fighting against the patriarchy, British history (particularly the Victorian era), nerds, how information is power – check, check, check and check.

Recently I’ve read about several people/historical events where I thought, why isn’t there a movie or best-selling book about this?!? Then I’d think, wait, maybe there is and I just don’t know about it. And I’d look up the person or event and find out that yes, there was a movie but it was filmed 40 to 50 years ago or it was a made-for-tv special or there was a book but it’s for children or by some author I’ve never heard of.

That’s what happened when I looked up Florence Nightingale. There actually are a ton of books but none that are by well-known historians (there are loads of kids books about her). There is an autobiography called “Notes on Nursing.” I’m sure is interesting but doubt it’s all that readable (after all, she could do many these exceedingly well but writing wasn’t one of her talents.)

There was a tv movie with Jaclyn Smith playing Nightingale. I’m sure THAT was historically accurate. There’s a 1915 British Silent film about Florence. And there was a British film made in 2008 with not a single name in the cast I recognize (which never happens) and the one review it got on IMDB gave it one star and wrote, “One of the worst costume dramas I’ve seen in years! The acting was terrible. the script was terrible, the screenplay was dull and the characters seem like they had been plucked out of the 21st century and thrown back in time! Laura Fraser was useless, good looking, but useless. She plays the strong modern woman type which is totally out of context for the time, and all the male characters are weak.” (By the way, the review ends with “Americans will love it!” I’m not joking!)

I came across which is that Elizabeth Moss is supposedly working on a new film about Florence Nightingale. I hope this isn’t one of those projects that gets announced but never happens but the article I linked is from 2018 and I couldn’t find anything past late 2019. Well, we’ll see what happens. Maybe they’ll be a resurgence of Nightingale-mania!

[Thanks to my friend Kathy for sharing this with me!]

5. This Book about the Classic Restaurants of Milwaukee – This is a bit niche for a general blog, but I think the majority of my followers will appreciate it. Talk about a trip down memory lane! My only complaint is that it wasn’t physically bigger (it’s only 6″ x 9″) because I wish that the photos were larger and frankly I’d like to have seen more restaurants included. But it’s an Arcadia Publishing book and this is the standard size for the majority of their titles. But I suspect it’s the only way to get a book like this published anymore. Sigh. Anyway, I enjoyed reading it immensely.

6. This Reboot of Leverage with the Original Cast (minus one) – I know that people who didn’t watch Leverage won’t be as excited about this as I am (in fact, you probably won’t give a hoot) but I’m over the moon about this news. I was super bummed when they ended the show in 2012. They did tie everything up, but in the four years it aired it built up quite a following and I know we would have been happy for the show to continue for several more years.

But it’s back with the entire cast, except for Timothy Hutton. (I had no idea there had been accusations made against him too.) I’m a bit surprised, although thrilled and relieved, that Aldis Hodge is returning as Alec Hardison. I mean, he’s hit the big time with ‘One Night in Miami’ and he’s also been on ‘City on a Hill.’ The addition of Noah Wyle to the cast must also mean that a return of ‘The Librarians’ is not in our future. Oh well. You can’t have everything.

7. This Miniature Round Bookcase – If you love miniature things you’ll enjoy perusing the entire Instagram for the Daily Mini.

Word of the Day

Quote of the Day

Seven Things I Love (3-8-2021)

March 8, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Happy International Women’s Day!

BOSTON, MA – MARCH 8: An International Women’s Day march, led by the Bread and Roses group, takes place in downtown Boston on March 8, 1970. The march advocated rights to abortion and equality in work opportunities. (Photo by Don Preston/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
  1. 1. This Couple, Annie Kampfe and Cliff Donnelly, Who Built a Miniature Mid-Century House Based on the Homes They Grew Up In – who doesn’t love miniatures and someone who put this much into the details of a Mid-Century home – I mean, it really would be every kids dream house, right?
ANNIE KAMPFE and CLIFF DONNELLY of Leewood, Kansas

2. This DoorDash Commercial – I don’t know about you but there is something quite comforting about the idea of being roomies with Cookie Monster. Yeah, he’d make a mess when he ate, yeah, you’d have to hide the cookies, but how cute is he sitting there on the sofa, reading next to Daveed Diggs?!?!

https://youtu.be/J8uXvfKjax4

3. This New(ish) Television Series, Resident Alien – based on a comic book series, Resident Alien takes a fairly common premise – alien invasion – and turns it upside down. In the SyFy series (which stars Alan Tudyk, most famous for his role as Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburne in Firefly, though I also love his ‘Steve the Pirate’ in Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story, one of my all-time favorite movies) is an alien who crash lands in Colorado while on a mission to actually destroy planet Earth. In the crash he loses some of the equipment he needs to destroy earth because it’s winter and it gets buried in the snow, somewhere on a rather large mountain.

Without alien equipment he has to go old school and look for it by walking around and digging, which he knows could take weeks. He decides he will need food and shelter and luckily finds a remote home on the lake. Not so lucky for the homeowner, it isn’t abandoned. The alien kills the man and disposes of his body in the lake but also takes the human’s form in case he’s noticed while searching for his lost equipment.

Soon after though a murder occurs in the nearby town and the victim is the town’s only doctor. The people in the town need someone to help them with the autopsy and guess who is the nearest doctor, yep, the guy the alien killed and transformed himself into.

What is most hilarious I think is that there are a couple kids in town who can see through the facade. I can’t remember what the explanation was – I just took it as being something like in the Polar Express and why kids could still hear the jingle bell. At first there was only one boy who could see him and the alien decided he was going to have to murder the kid. But the kid was a bit more of a challenge than he anticipated.

Anyway, it’s an excellent show! The first episode was a little slow but it has only gotten better and better.

You can watch the trailer here. OR if you really want to get drawn in, here are the first 7 minutes.

ALAN TUDYK as the Alien and Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle

4. This COMPLETELY FABRICATED Series Called Tiny Secret Whispers‘ that Seth Meyers Has Been Gushing Over on His Show for the Past Three Weeks – Sorry Stephen, but Seth has officially become my favorite late night host. His impressions, his banter with his staff, long running jokes like the Thorn birds, the Sea Captain and now this. It’s sheer brilliance and it keeps his audience tuned in every night.

5. These Waterproof Notepads, Aquanotes – I’ve found that I think most clearly in the shower. I suspect it is because there is no distractrations. I’ve tried for several years to find the best way to keep track of my thoughts and ideas. I moved in an Alexa. I bought a waterproof recorder, a few different ones actually. But nothing worked because everything that I bought required me to then take transcribe what I dictated and that was a pain. I finally found these and they have been the best solution. They keep me from rambling (as we know, that is my tendency) and then I can rip off the page, take it to my desk and get it all taken care of without having to listen to a recording first. They are a little pricey but after you buy the first pencil/pad set for $9.75 you can get refills, 3 pads for $26, so it’s a little over a dollar less per pad.

6. This Response from LeVar Burton on the Decision by Seuss Enterprises to Discontinue Publication of Six of Their Titles – Who is better qualified to speak on this topic than Mr. Reading Rainbow himself (and of course ST:TNG’s Geordi La Forge)? You should watch the entire interview and listen to his full reply. It’s exceptional.

“Actually, I think that, in the general sense, once you know better, it is incumbent upon you to do better, and that’s exactly what Seuss Enterprises is doing here. They are being a responsible steward of the brand and they looked at these six titles and determined that in the light of today, they really don’t fit with the values that we’ve all come to know Dr Seuss for. Look, all of our heroes are human; they are all flawed. It’s one of the things I learned from Gene Roddenberry, one of my storytelling mentors. Gene was a guy who had this great vision, but he also wanted all the women in short skirts, so our heroes are flawed.”

-LeVar Burton on CNN’s Full Circle

7. This Website that Drives You Around Most Major Cities of the World – called Drive and Listen, the website will make you feel like you are sitting in a taxi in one of over 50 cities in the world. You can choose whether you want to include street noise (why wouldn’t you?!?) and a local radio station. Unfortunately you don’t get to choose the radio station but that only makes the ride more realistic.

London, UK
Paris, France
Havana, Cuba

Word of the Day

I came across a great list of female related words (most of which I will be using in the future so I’m not going to include the link.) I’m starting with this one. The root of the word, vir-, is Latin for man, such as in the word virile. Don’t you find it interesting how one definition is a nagging shrew and the other is strong, heroic woman?

Quote of the Day

Have a lovely week!

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