Hey Friends, It's Groundhog Day... Again

"Hear Ye Hear Ye
On Gobbler's Knob this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2009,
Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators..." 

OFFICIAL VERDICT: Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, which mean six more weeks of winter. 

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The film Groundhog Day is definitely one of my top ten favorite films of all time. Here's a 2009 blog post about the Bill Murray classic. 

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Here's something I never knew before. Milltown, NJ also celebrates Groundhog Day with its own celebrity groundhog, Milltown Mel. Last night, and I'm not making this up, Milltown Mel died. Yes, he did... Was it foul play by folk from Punxsutawney? Is there a meaning to be found in this tragedy? What if it means... and I dread saying it, six more years of Covid?

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For more fun about the importance of this day, do a search for Groundhog Day on your Twitter feed.

You can also read my very brief 2021 post from this day and pretend it's deva vu all over again.

A self-centered Pittsburgh weatherman finds himself 
inexplicably trapped in a small town
as he lives the same day over and over again.

No one does it like Bill Murray, but he didn't do it alone. 
The film had a great supporting cast with Andie McDowell,
Chris Elliot and a host of extras.

It's Groundhog Day! Deja Vu All Over Again

It's Official Six More Weeks of Winter

Picture of the Day

Photo above courtesy Gary Firstenberg

12 years ago I wrote this blog post about Groundhog Day,
one of my favorite films of all time. Thank you, Bill Murray.

Photo below courtesy my Twitter Feed.

Make the most of your day.
It will be gone before you know it.

What do Crytsal Bridge, Bill Murray, Matt Oman and The Mask Police have in common?

We're nearing the end of August and thus far it's been the most unusual year of my life. Many years have been marked unanticipated events that either happened (60's assassinations, 9/11) or didn't happen (Y2K), no year has been as life-changing in terms of its effect on behavior and the economic impact, nor the variety (surge in violence in the cities and racial friction).

In short, the year is two-thirds complete and I wish I could say that the worst is behind us but with an election ahead and no end to the violence in sight, I have a foreboding about what's
to come.

Against this backdrop, here are a few links that can serve as miniature diversions for whatever comes our way in the week ahead.

1) My satirical poem The Mask Police was published this past week in No Crime In Rhymin'.

2) Bill Murray has made an industry of his deadpan demeanor. Someone that that in addition to playing roles in films, he might be a good candidate to be inserted into famous paintings from history. It's an imaginative stroll through art history not unlike Woody Allen's Zelig. Here's the link.
https://mymodernmet.com/bill-murray-art-throughout-history/

3) While visiting the garage gallery of Matt Oman a few weeks back I learned about the Arkansas art museum Crystal Bridges in the vicinity of Branson. There are many great exhibits there, including an Ansel Adams exhibit for photography buffs, but Deborah Sverbers After The Last Supper, produced with 20,736 spools of thread, is utterly mind-blowing. Follow this link to learn more:
https://crystalbridges.org/exhibitions/after-the-last-supper/

4) The images on this page are Matt Oman's. We met at an art show in 2012 and have stayed in touch since. This is how I began my review of his gallery in 2018:

Unconventional means someone who doesn't follow conventions. Matt Oman's garage is not a garage at all. It's an art gallery. I've known people who can't use their garages because they're so full of clutter. I have not known any who turned their garage into a gallery. (I do know a few who have converted their garage into an art studio though.) 
You can read more about Matt Oman here.

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Onward and upward. 

The Evolution of Made in Japan: From Inferior Quality to Tokyo Wealth

A few weeks ago I received an interesting email from my son with links to a YouTube video by a woman named Arundhati Roy, an Indian writer and activist whose book The God Of Small Things obtained for her international attention and awards. I'd never heard of Ms. Roy, so I was interested in hearing some of what she had to say.

I watched the video, and another, and was so impressed I bought the book. Well, impressed enough to want a copy of something she'd written so I could see more vividly where she was coming from. Her thought provoking ideas were resonating with a part of me, and evidently with others as well.

The world has changed, is changing and will continue to do so. Boomers experienced this first hand as we were growing up. There was a time when goods that had the words MADE IN JAPAN printed on them were of a fairly inferior quality. Yet when you watch a film like Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation starring Bill Murray, you can be sure that all that Tokyo wealth was not created on the backs of laborers who manufactured junk.

International trade has created wealth abroad, and made U.S. dependence on foreign sources of goods an imperative. We say we dislike what the big box retailers are doing in terms of importing foreign goods, yet we also dislike high prices. Hence on his Infidels album Dylan sings:

Well, my shoes, they come from Singapore

My flashlight's from Taiwan

My tablecloth's from Malaysia

My belt buckle's from the Amazon

You know, this shirt I wear comes from the Philippines

And the car I drive is a Chevrolet

It was put together down in Argentina

By a guy making thirty cents a day.

~Union Sundown, Bob Dylan

This international trade of goods has been moving wealth around the world for a very long time. How did England gain its great wealth in the days when the sun never set on the British Empire? (Rhetorical)

But today, the changes coming may even be more significant as we see the Internet transferring ideas around the world, with unheard of speed. American citizens have been isolated by geography from most of the world's distress. But today, with the Internet, it's all out there, within view, if you wish to look and listen. These are, therefore, amazing times. Sensitive, thoughtful people have finally found a mechanism for being heard. Sensitive, thoughtful Americans are beginning to hear voices they had been shielded from by those who edit the evening news and those who feed us the pictures on our glass onions and flat panel screens.

On this topic there is much more to say.... but we'll get to that another day.