Sunday, February 17, 2008

The Transfiguration / Giovanni Bellini / 1500

F&FW is making an occasional feature a regular feature, to wit: Sundays we will highlight a work of art. We will attempt, as here, to relate the work to the calendar. Monday we return to local food, news and bad, dad jokes.
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The Second Sunday of Lent
Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother,
and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them;
his face shone like the sun
and his clothes became white as light.
And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them,
conversing with him.

The Gospel of St. Matthew 17:1


Saturday, February 16, 2008

The Fine Art of Doing Nothing.




Once or twice a year I read an essay or article I especially like. Today was one of those days. It's a good post for a Saturday. I am posting the first few paragraphs, if you like it, the link will bring you the rest.
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All Nothing All the Time

Neil Genzlinger / February 16, 2008 / NY Times


IF you’re wearing a cast right now, this advice comes too late, but file it away for next winter: There’s nothing wrong with doing nothing. And there’s a bed-and-breakfast out there, framed in snow but with plush rooms and welcoming fires inside, that is made for helping you remember how.

A certain high-powered personality type, the kind that advertises itself with a ski rack on the car, doesn’t grasp this concept. These folks may check into a cozy B & B on a chilly day, but then it’s eat and run run run, to the slopes or the snowmobile trails or the icy sidewalks of some antiques alley.

People like this guarantee full employment for paramedics and anyone in the crutch or quick-set-plaster business. But we travelers who have attained more of what I like to think of as maturity — “slothfulness” and “decrepitude” seem like such harsh words — know that human beings are supposed to hibernate in the winter. A bed-and-breakfast or small inn is, to us, a well-appointed cave where we go with the goal of doing nothing. Not just a little bit of nothing between bursts of something. I’m talking about all nothing, all the time.

for the balance of the essay:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/travel/escapes/?8dpc

The Wave.