Ruby Tuesday

Ruby Retrospective

2009

 Mary hosts Ruby Tuesday weekly from her blog Work of the Poet


click images for better viewing

 January

My front yard, overlooking the Connecticut River

western Massachusetts

 February
Portrait of Barak Obama

by a five-year-old   
(cute, huh?)

Old Barn

Sunderland, Massachusetts

 March
My Buddy Omar 

(friends' dog)

April

Tulips around the maple tree in my yard

 May

Old Strubridge Village Doorway

Strubridge, Massachusetts

June

Asian Lily in my yard

 July

Millions of Bicycles

Barcelona, Spain

July
Zona Oeste, Portugal

August

Lawn Ornament

Nova Scotia 

September

Our favorite local orchard

South Deerfield, Massachusetts

October

Leaves in a fountain

Boston, Massachusetts

 November

LP's Birthday Pie
(it's raspberry-blueberry, in case you're wondering)  ;-)

December

Sinister Clowns

photograph from Mass MoCA

North Adams, Massachusetts

Spain and Portugal Photos and Comment Moderation

The Spain/Portugal slide show is now at the right, if you'd like to check it out. I'm still adding to it from the thousand-plus photos I took on this two week trip. I already miss those blue, blue Portuguese skies on sunny days. Only one rainy day the entire time we were there.

See what I mean?

Hundreds of spam comments (or whatever they are called) have been creeping into The Pagan Sphinx in the form of messages in an oriental language I cannot read and which link to porn sites. The comments are being scattered through past blog posts and I'm still plucking them out as I type this. I may not be able to delete them all, as blogger has no system I know of for deleting multiple unwanted comments. I utilized comment moderation once before due to unwelcome comments, but this is the first time I've had any problems with massive amounts of smut-spam.

My apologies for this but it's relatively quick to approve the comments through email so I'm not anticipating any communication difficulties.

See You at the End of July (and some music from Mariza)

The Supergirls and I are off to Barcelona and Lisbon tomorrow! Wish you were coming along. Meanwhile, I have some Portuguese music to share with you.

The totally modern Mariza, performing a Portuguese song from the 40s, with a completely modern twist. You really need to listen at least for a few minutes. She's amazing. A totally drop-dead passionate and evocative vocalist.

Mariza was born in the overseas Portuguese Provence of Mozambique. My dearest Portuguese aunt and her daughters, my chummiest cousins, lived there for many years until they returned to Portugal in the late 1970s. Mozambique was taken back by its original people and all the white colonialists had to beat feet. A good thing for that country and a loss of their home for my relatives. But heck, they're over it! I didn't cut them a lot of slack when they told their story but I was glad that they were okay and back home safely. Most of the Portuguese actually got off pretty easy, given their overbearing, colonial presence in a country that didn't belong to them.

I apolozie for the tangent but it all started when I read that Mariza is the child of a Portuguese father and a partially African mother. For years I have wanted to see this incredible woman perform. Fado is a style of Portuguese music that dates back to the 1820s or earlier. It is a very dramatic, passionate and compelling musical style. There is also a style of Fado that is lighter and sounds more like folk music. The dramatic Fado reminds me closest to American blues, though perhaps there is a better analogy. I'm hoping my friend Singing Bear can analyze it for me, cuz he's my resource for all things musical and he knows what he's talking about!Enjoy and I'll see at the end of July. Have a great summer.
All the Love,
Pagan Sphinx