Spencer says: "I made that!"

Beautiful and yummy!

From Chaz:

Like I said pretty great

Fwd: De Kooning

I went back to view De Kooning again and I was all wrong, in fact I was all wet believing he was not much of a talent. De Koon is fabulous I was an idiot! Rivera is pretty good with the Calla Lilies as well.

Charles Sent from my iPhone

Out for a Walk

. . . on Christmas Day, near Eliot and Kyra's . . . the abdominal . . . I mean, abominable . . . snowman!!!!!!

Slavko: Happy Holidays

Wish you all the best for this coming holiday season, we got a small Christmas tree ready, along with some wheat and orchid that doesn't seems to stop blooming. Business as usual, have some sunshine, but it is a winter definitely (Nada's longing for the summer now)! Two good news for the coming year, back road is being paved, Berica's working with all the equipment, and new catamaran stop is under construction across St.Nikola's church, at Vlaska. And, by Berica store one section of riva is rebuilding. It feels better with the work going on!

Best wishes to you, Julia and the family from Nada and Slavko

Chaz sez:

My car wouldn't start last night after work and then I hit a cement post with Melanie's car later in the evening. I used up most of my AAA tows for the year in less than 4 hours.

Charles 

Solstice

I am drinking Pacifico,
smoking cigars,
listening to Sarah Vaughan,
almost
as if it were summer.

Happy Birthday, Philip K. Dick!

Last Part of Booke

THE BATTLE OF PARIS

General Leclerc , De Gaulle's favorite French tank commander, of the French 2^nd Army had been attached to the American General Patton and was overanxious to take his men and aide the uprisings of the French Resistance against the Nazis in Paris beginning on August 19^th.

LeClerc went to Patton and demanded that he be allowed to drive his men to Paris and begin the liberation of the city.  Patton was indifferent to this demand and told LeClerc it made no difference to him who liberated Paris.  Finally after much cajoling from De Gaulle Eisenhower finally gave the permission for LeClerc to head his troops in the direction of Paris.  Some observers say that LeClerc had already left by the time his orders arrived.

The Allied command was reluctant to help the French 2^nd Army but as the liberation of Paris ran into modest resistance from the Nazis they sent in divisions of the 3^rd American Army to help out.  The Americans were worried that the liberation of Paris might turn into the Battle of Stalingrad all over again but the heroics of the French Resistance in those days went a long way toward the surrender of the German commandant Dietrich von Cholitz.

On August 19^th the French Resistance began to blockade the streets of Paris and attacked the German garrison on the Isle St. Louis.  This led to conditions of general mayhem in the city and the German commander even tried to negotiate a cease-fire with the Resistance fighters but the French smelling blood would not have it.

Hostilities in the streets grew, as there was a general strike called by Resistance, which severely limited the Nazis from managing the city anymore.

Hitler had demanded that von Cholitz wire the famous landmarks of Paris and its bridges with enough bombs to level the city.  Hitler wanted Paris left in a heap of rubble on the way out of town.

While von Cholitz had been a loyal Nazi general in his career and had committed many acts of cruelty and violence he could not bring himself to destroy one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  While von Cholitz joked with his men that he was going to blow up the Eiffel Tower and use it as a foot bridge to cross the Seine he knew in his heart that he did not want to be known as the man who destroyed the city of light.  The city of Paris.  And besides von Cholitz knew that Hitler was now losing the war and to follow his commands to letter was a risky venture.

After much fierce fighting, Leclerc and his 2^nd Army and the French Resistance liberated Paris on August 24^th with the loss of 1500 Resistance fighters and 100 soldiers dead.  Over 5,000 German soldiers surrendered along with General von Cholitz.

The French people rushed out into the streets because they were so ecstatic that the Nazis had finally been defeated.  They were put in great harm thought by isolated German snipers lodged in the top floors of apartment buildings and on the rooftops of commercial buildings.

When De Gaulle entered the great Cathedral Notre Dame on the 25^th after his march down the Champs Elysee he was nearly gunned down as strode into the church by German snipers.  De Gaulle did not flinch a bit and he went on to deliver his famous speech about French liberty.

Pariee est liberte!!

The Battle for Paris is especially fierce near Picasso's home that he often said a bullet went by his head one morning, as he opened a window, and lodged itself into the wall of his bathroom.  Marie Therese lived on the Isle St. Louis where the German garrison was under attack so Picasso went to her apartment to stay with her and their daughter Maya.

On August 25^th, 1944 General Leclerc swept into Paris and forced the Germans to surrender the city back to the Free French.  Later that day the 3^rd American Army followed right behind.

Ernest Hemmingway was a journalist traveling with the American 3^rd Army and on the day Paris is liberated from the Nazis he boasted that he liberated the bars at Crillon and Ritz Hotels and he that let enough champagne flow out to liberate all of the streets of Paris.  Hemingway loved a story.

Later that same day Hemingway visited the Shakespeare and Company bookstore and asked Sylvia Beach what he could do for her.  Sylvia complained about the German snipers on the rooftops across the street shooting down on passer bys on the sidewalks.  Hemingway said no problem and went outside and spoke with the American soldiers traveling with him about the snipers.  Within 15 minutes the snipers had been dealt with. 

Hemingway's next stop was Picasso's place.  When Hemingway arrived  Picasso was not home but the concierge of the building asked if Hemingway would like to leave a present for Mr. Picasso.  Hemingway thought for a moment and then went back to his jeep parked on the street.  Hemingway returned with a case of grenades and told the concierge that, "Please tell Mr. Picasso that these are a gift from Mr. Hemingway.

Picasso returned to his studio on Grandes Augustine's once the fighting and sniper fire was subdued and once he found that Picasso was now the most famous and beloved man in all of France.

Because Picasso outlasted the cruelty of the Nazi's without giving in to their offers of better treatment all the world looked to him as a beacon of hope.

Picasso's home became the most popular spot on the tourist map for American soldiers on leave.  Francoise Gilot told stories about how every day after the liberation for weeks and weeks that there were American soldiers sleeping all over the vast studios.  The soldiers had all come to be with a hero.

By waiting out the Nazis with Hitler's proclamations and believing in deep in his sense of inner being and to keep on working in spite of the terror Picasso had won the war with the Nazis over life, liberty and art and the freedom to make Art as you believe.

In May of 1945 while Hitler is having himself and Eva murdered by an SS agent and then ordered to be burned like Sigfried; Picasso is living in gay Paris and starting a whole new chapter of his creative life with the intelligent and shapely twenty three year old Francoise Gilot. 

The Question goes out to the reader, "Who won that contest?"  

Charles Grimes 2011

What a weird year.

A Typical Office Christmas Party Conversation??

2011 Office Party
by: jhurd

The God Particle

Well, as you know, CERN today announced "tantalizing hints" of the Higgs Boson -- the "god particle" that gives things -- other particles -- mass. Physicists need to find this particle to confirm the Standard Theory of sub-atomic particle interaction. They believe they should be able to confirm it, or rule it out, in the next few months. If ruled out, this would force a radical rethink of 'the way things are.' The video above explains the Higgs field and Higgs boson.

Fwd: BOOK

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Charles Grimes <charlesgrimes9@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 12:08 PM
Subject: book
To: JRH <jhurd@qsoup.net>

Thanks for your support.  I am reaching a point of mental fatigue as I search for the end of this phase of the book.  I know I will need to add more sections to get the book to 150 pages.  I have thought of two sections.  Mythologies is one chapter and Racisim is the other.  Racisim is what allows your mind to damage and murder other peoples so easily.  A Rascist believes he is culturally and mentally superior to those he plunders.  Kinda deep.

 

I think I have stumbled upon what I need.  The Nazi vision goes up in flames so a sense of renewal by fire there.  Picasso finds a sense of renewal in his attraction to Francoise.  She is young and beautiful and he can shape her into his new muse of life after near death at the hands of the Gestapo.  Picasso's trust in his belief of self and working in the face of terror and believing in his mythology outlasts the Nazi government beliefs (there are still Nazi who personally believe) and their work and mythology.  With the liberation of Paris Picasso is the number one celebrity of the Liberation and he did not even fire a shot.  Even DeGaulle had comprimised himself during the Occupation but Picasso's belief in sticking out the Occupation and being himself made him the uncomprimised hero.

 

His women would see this another way but History remembers only the victors.  While Hitler is having himself and Eva murdered in his bunker Picasso is starting a new life of celebrity and fame with a 20 year old babe.

 

Something like that.

 

I have been watching all of these documentaries of the Battle of Stalingrad.  The German soldiers were so hungry and cold that in the last days of the battle they would bury themselves in the rubble to stay warm and at the end of the fighting the Russian soldiers had to dig the Germans out of the ruble because they were too weak to do it themselves.

 

I am just starting to dig into the material about the last days of the German occupation where Hitler tells his commander in chief in Paris that if Hitler cannot have Paris then no one will have it.  Leave Paris in a heap.  Destroy everything.

 

Charles

Dateline Detroit: Chaz and Diego

Chaz gets to see Diego Rivera's 'Detroit Industry' murals (1932) Detroit Institute of Arts.  An Edsel Ford legacy . . .

"Notes the Washington Post, "Rivera was hired by the Ford Motor Co., and his series of politically charged fresco panels was called 'Detroit Industry.' Ultimately, Edsel Ford allowed that it was acceptable for an artist to displease his patron; the work is now recognized as one of Rivera’s masterpieces." "

Julian Visits the Old Folks back in Ann Arbor

Oh, "Merely" that . . . well, that's a relief . . .

"By Pepe Cortes

PALENQUE, Mexico | Fri Dec 2, 2011 10:06am EST

(Reuters) - If you are worried the world will end next year based on the Mayan calendar, relax: the end of time is still far off. So say Mayan experts who want to dispel any belief that the ancient Mayans predicted a world apocalypse next year.
The Mayan calendar marks the end of a 5,126 year old cycle around December 12, 2012 which should bring the return of Bolon Yokte, a Mayan god associated with war and creation.
Author Jose Arguelles called the date "the ending of time as we know it" in a 1987 book that spawned an army of Mayan theorists, whose speculations on a cataclysmic end abound online. But specialists meeting at this ancient Mayan city in southern Mexico say it merely marks the termination of one period of creation and the beginning of another. . ."

(Ed:  Bold and italics are mine . . .)