Category: Soldiers, Skirmishes and Strategies

Fashion vs. Art

KBB Times Tour 2016-04-19 16.48.46 — The stone lady to my left is part of my *Fashion in Art* tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The still is a clip from the NT Times OpDoc piece, *Fashion vs. Art*

One of my coping strategies straddles support groups as well, too, because of the “family feeling” when you serve as a volunteer at the Met. You feel as if you really belong, and the great works of art that you pass on a daily basis welcome you like old friends.

I give a tour entitled Fashion in Art which looks at highlights from the Museum’s collection from a novel point of view. What is the subject wearing? What does it say about the person (or people)? What does it say about the world in which they live? What does it say about how the artist portrayed them?

This still photo is a clip from a documentary about the big Museum splash, the First Monday in May when the Museum is closed so the glamoratti from all over the world can attend the red carpet Costume Institute benefit. In this OpDoc, the film team followed my regular Fashion in Art tour and included several portions of it in the finished documentary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/opinion/fashion-is-not-trivial.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ffashion&_r=3

Becoming Invisible

Have you ever noticed that the older you get the less visible you are to other people?

I remember seeing a comic strip once, maybe an Archie type, that showed two young men of Archie’s ilk driving along in a convertible. Several people, mail carriers, business men, older women, who were trying to cross the street, had to wait until the pair had tootled by, when suddenly, two curvacious dames appeared on the street corner. The convertible screeched to a halt to let them cross.

Do you find that those days are gone for good for you? They sure are for me. In fact, one day, not too long ago, I was standing stock still on the sidewalk when a woman attempted to walk right through me.

The Riddle Song

This song came to my mind as I watched my two tiny foster kittens sleeping, because the silence that falls when these two kittens are sleeping is as intense as the the silence of a baby sleeping. It is a different silence than the simple silence of being alone. What gives it such intensity and what makes it so different from the silence of an adult sleeping are questions that pose a true riddle.

I gave my love a cherry it had no stone, I gave my love a chicken it had no bone, I told my love a story it had no end, I gave my love a baby with no cryin’.

How can there be a cherry it has no stone? How can there be a chicken it has no bone, How can there be a story, it has no end? How can there be a baby with no cryin’?

A cherry when it’s bloomin’ it has no stone. A chicken when it’s hatchin’ it has no bone. The story of our love, it has no end. A baby when it’s sleepin’, has no cryin’.

The Riddle Song is a traditional children’s folk song with many versions.This one was collected by Jean Ritchie, a daughter of Eastern Kentucky and “The Mother of Folk,” who collected songs from her native Appalachia and introduced mountain dulcimer music to the outside world. Jean Ritchie, a senior warrior herself, died June 2, 2015, at the age of 92 in Berea, Ky. NY Times Jean Ritchie obituary.

SAMSUNG — *Cherries Without Stones* – Cherry Trees in the Conservatory Garden, NYC