Happy Monkey Year 2016

Monkeys are tricky.

Move fast.

Move with bananas, otherwise you'll be pelted with monkey shit and that shit stinks.

image by tristam de quatremere

Rent-Free Hell 2016

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and on the C train between Hoyt-Schemmerhorn and Lafayette Street a young man was preaching about the wrath of his lord. "God loves his flock, but hates a sinner. All you sinners will have a special place of torment in Hell." He glared about the subway car like Josef Mengele, the SS Angel of Death at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I met his stare with cold blue eyes, but smiled as I asked, "Are those places rent-free?" Most of the passengers were immune from his rant. Their headphones and earplugs filled their head with song. A few were free of any device and they laughed at my quip. The preacher was not amused and pointed a finger in my direction. "The end is coming soon." "Not soon enough for me, if it means you'll be taken to your holy heaven and I don't have to listen to you anymore." The train stopped at Lafayette and I stepped onto the platform, half-expecting the preacher man to follow my exit. He stood at the door of the subway shaking the Bible at me. "You're lost." The preacher scowled without joy. There are no jokes in hell for the Christians. "Not lost, but found in the beauty of humanity and the glory of love." "Damnation." "And I couldn't be happier." The subway doors closed and the preacher was dragged deeper into Brooklyn. I exited from the train station to enjoy the cool evening air thinking about the Jesus-lover celebrating Bunny Day with an egg hunt. No humor was one thing, but no fun was another, then again stranger things have happened to the faithful. Even to those without a sense of humor. I'll be laughing my head off in Hell. Rent-free of course.

Blizzard Conditions

In 2015 no snow fell on Christmas Day in New York.

None fell on New Year's Day north in Duchess County either, although snow clung under the rocky shadows in the woods.

The North Atlantic states were experiencing an extraordinarily warm winter, despite my prayers to pagan snow gods.

Two days ago the weathermen predicted a change. It had nothing to do with my prayers.

A spectacular Nor'easter was scheduled to up the Eastern Seaboard spraying epic snowfalls on the coast

They were not wrong.

Washington DC recorded 24' of the white stuff, while Fort Greene in Brooklyn was covered by 30", which was the second deepest snowfall ever to hit New York. Mayor DeBlasio declared an emergency and the city shut down for the duration of the blizzard.

As the snow tapped off in the evening, I emerged from the Fort Greene Observatory to see the accumulation of snow on the street as well as find someplace open.

Motorists were obeying the mayor's edict and not a single car was on Lafayette Avenue.

Now out of the house I thought about getting a drink.

A beer.

Fort Greene was known for its bars.

One had to be open.

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89th Academy Awards

Everyone in the Arts dreams about the Oscars.

Actors, directors, producers, actresses, writers, musicians, make-up artists, cinematographers, costumers et al.

I know I'm leaving out someone, but who doesn't in an Academy Awards acceptance speech.

Even I once held such dreams, but tonight I'll be watching the Boston Celtics versus Detroit. I have no dreams any more. Not of standing at that gloried dais in Los Angeles.

I only went to the cinema once last year, but that doesn't exclude my predicting the winners from having only seen the trailers and posters, so and the winners are.

Best Visual Effects

Deepwater Horizon – Craig Hammack, Jason Snell, Jason Billington, and Burt Dalton

I like Mark Wahlberg. He comes from Boston.

Best Film Editing

I support all Science Fiction movies

Best Costume Design

Jackie – Madeline Fontaine

Even though Nathalie Portman doesn't look a thing like Jackie.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

A Man Called Ove – Eva von Bahr and Love Larson

I like their names.

Best Cinematography

Arrival – Bradford Young

Space movies rule and fuck LA LA LAND

Best Production Design

Arrival – Patrice Vermette and Paul Hotte

I'm all in.

Best Sound Mixing

Arrival – Sylvain Bellemare

I love French people.

Best Documentary – Short Subject

The White Helmets – Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara

Stop the Endless War.

Best Documentary – Feature

I Am Not Your Negro – Raoul Peck, Rémi Grellety, and Hébert Peck

We worship the righteous dead.

Best Foreign Language Film

Tanna (Australia) in Nauvhal – Martin Butler and Bentley Dean I have been to Melansia.

Best Animated Feature Film

The Red Turtle – Michaël Dudok de Wit and Toshio Suzuki

Anyone but Disney.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Hidden Figures – Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi from Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

I was a Math Major at University.

Best Original Screenplay

20th Century Women – Mike Mills

This quirky film with weird dancing scene at punk clubs was the only Oscar nominee I saw in 2016

Best Supporting Actress

Naomie Harris – Moonlight as Paula

She has kind eyes.

Best Supporting Actor

Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water as Marcus Hamilton

I would love to see this veteran win one.

Best Actress

Isabelle Huppert – Elle as Michèle Leblanc

Viva La France.

Best Actor

Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea as Lee Chandler

A shout out for Falmouth, Mass.

Best Director

Denis Villeneuve – Arrival

De La Belle Province - Quebec.

And finally the moment we have bee waiting for.

Best Picture of 2016

Moonlight – Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner

Because it's always good to recognize the best.

Tears Of Kusama - Modern Musee In Stockholm

This week in Stockholm Modern Musee Yayoi Kusama exhibited a collection of works from 2009 to the present.

At the opening of her show the 87 year-old painter said, " "My life has been polished by art" and wept.

A great artiste.

A Message To Hillary

My letter to Hillary Clinton

Congratulations on your nomination.

I am a 64 year-old white male registered as an independent.

I live in new york city, which should overwhemingly support your campaign to be president.

My women friends are firmly behind you.

"I want to see a woman elected president before i die."

I supported your health care fight in 1993.

You were unfairly demonized by both parties.

Men mostly. But having lived in Europe I realized that your plan was only a small stepping stone to universal health care.

But you never said that.

Signaling your belief in the free market system.

That was to be expected on moderates, however you shined elsewhere.

In 1995 I was living in tibet. i listened to your speech at the women's congress on the BBC world service.

I was overwhelmingly to hear you say, "Now it is time to act on behalf of women everywhere.

If we take bold steps to better the lives of women, we will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children and families too. Families rely on mothers and wives for emotional support and care; families rely on women for labor in the home; and increasingly, families rely on women for income needed to raise healthy children and care for other relatives."

Women flowed into lhasa empowered by your words and i respect your efforts on their behalf.

Change is long overdue.

It remains long overdue as you well know.

I have to admit I was very disappointed by your war vote on Iraq and seemingly cosiness with the banks.

Being a shy person myself I recognize your reluctance to meet with the Press.

They are no one's friend, however to many people you have gone MIA in the last weeks.

It doesn't matter how much money you raise, if you don't have a message and right now your sentence is deafening.

People have trouble see you.

They accept what they are told.

You become what the media says you are.

If there was ever a time to break out of your shell, now is it.

Though not to parrot your previous newsspeak.

That rhetoric hides your soul and Americans want to see that.

They want to trust their president.

They want to feel safe.

They want someone who listens to them and not a friend of the banks.

Honesty, trust, safety.

I'm a father of five. we want to believe.

We can not believe in thin air.

It is time for you to be you.

Best wishes

Peter Nolan Smith

New Englander

98 And That's All

Thursday the temperature in New York City hit the high 90s. The humidity soaked my shirt within a few minutes of exposure to the outside weather. I drank three large bottles of Perrier, ate a quarter of a watermelon, and downed about five iced beers in a vain attempt to keep up with my projectile sweating. It was almost as if my pores were spitting out fluid. Once home I took about five showers and remained cloistered in my air-conditioned apartment.

I survived the night.

Friday the weathermen were predicting heat nearing 100.

The record for New York City was 105 and the hottest temperature ever recorded for the NY State was in Troy on July 22, 1926, when the thermometer hit 108.

Today the temperature has slacked off and I said that the heat wasn't as bad as the previous day. My friends said my brain was heat-addled. They weren't far from the truth.

The present heat wave will continue throughout the weekend, although Sunday evening is predicted to be the end.

This morning I even went out to shoot hoops at the park on DeKalb.

My friends once more accused me of suffering from heat madness, but this recent spike in the temperature is nothing to comparison to the grasp of the heat dome over Oklahoma and Kansas. A month of unrelenting 90+ temperature, but even that streak pales in regards to the longest heat wave in modern history.

5 months of 100+ Marble Bar, Australia during the winter of 1924.

America's worst heat wave occurred in the Dust Bowl of 1936.

101+ for over 100 days in Yuma, Arizona.

Back then hot was hot. There was no AC. Ice melted faster than butter on the red-hot frying pan.

98 was hot for New York City.

People complained so much that their wind blew away the heat.

Hot air versus hot air.

New Yorkers are # 1.

It's certainnly not Kansas.

Bernie Wins NH

Senator McGovern won one state and the District of Columbia in 1972.

Massachusetts.

A journalist asked a Bostonian why the North Dakotan had carried the Bay State against the Richard Nixon tsunami and the townie said, "As a Bostonian we know a crook, when we see one."

And we know what is right too.

Go Bernie Go.

Half of NASA's 2016 Astronaut Class

NASA announced that half of its 2016 class will be women and that the team will be training for a future Mars mission. This is quite an accomplishment, especially considering the state of NASA's space fleet.

NASA no longer has a Space Shuttle

And neither does Russia.

None featuring women.

Just a unisex mission to Mars.

Then again there's always the Devil Girl from Mars.

And she's trouble on any planet on the solar system.

As if any woman from Mars.