Happy Thanksgiving, Turkey. Look What's Under the Bed.

The blog is with the turkeys for the weekend and will return Monday Nov. 29 for part three of the Fractured Pelvis Chroncles.  But wait, wait, there's plenty of good stuff here.  You may call them leftovers but they look tasty to me. 

If you missed the 1979 Polish Grand Prix now's your chance.

Or, click on bob judd on the top of this page or click on such gems as  my favorite, How You Look at the Sky.   Or The Kythera Chronicles to shake hands with Barbarossa.

Or just cruise through the links on the lower right hand side of this page, maybe come upon some unexpected little gem like  an excerpt from The Candle,  In Praise of the Belleville Midgets,  The Midgets of Belleville. Part II,  Truth in Grass: a Kansas adventure, The Story of the Larned Eagle Optic, Hollywood Calls, You Pick up the Phone,
Hollywood Calls, you pick up the phone part 2 maybe my favorite My Short Happy War in Afghanistan or no, wait, wait, Fangio and the Maserati 250 F for the priceless video of Fangio in a polo shirt and helmet, absolutely relaxed driving a Maserati 250F around a beat up old race track with no run off, no barriers, no safety nothing.  My lunch with Rob Walkeris a good one even though it leaves out the Betty Grable stories. 

             Then there's Erno Goldfingers house-and-mine, which throws in Ian Flemming, no extra charge. Riding around Laguna Seca with Jackie Stewart was picked up by Jalopnik.com.
              Or Uncle John's Prayer.

               Or Clarence Judd Head-Butts a Truck.  Truck dies. That's a good one.
             And, of course, the one that started it all, Truck Story 

             You really should visit Hiltonpond.org for fabulous pictures of hawks and hummingbirds with the science to back up the beauty.
             Or go visit Elif Batumen, San Francisco's brightest and funniest writer, a fine lady to curl up with for a good read.  Here's Elif's homepage.
             Enjoy, Have a ball.  See you Monday. Bob

How You Look at the Sky. A Great Teacher Looks Up.

Joseph Mallord William Turner  1775-1851

              I hereby nominate September 7 Great Teacher Day.

            Great teachers are rare and should be honored as the national treasures they are. 

            When I learned Don Gifford was coming to London on his way to give a lecture at Cambridge on James Turrell I called up my old professor at Williams College and suggested  we have lunch.  

             "Great," he said. "I want to go to The Tate.  "They've got a nifty little restaurant.  I'll meet you there."

              Two weeks later the tall gaunt figure of the great James Joyce scholar, a little bent by time, raincoat flapping, was striding across the restaurant.  As usual, he was glowing with enthusiasm. "I've been looking at the new Turner exhibition." he said. "And you know how a lot of people point to Turner as the precursor of impressionism."  I nodded as if, yes, of course I knew that.

               "Well they've got his cartoons up so you can see his sketches and he is very precise about where he places his clouds, what he does with his light.  He moves them around until he's got them where he wants them.  Which is, of course the opposite of impressionism which was painting quickly to capture a moment exactly as it was."

                He smiled.  "But the point is not where Turner fits in the arc of pictorial history. The point is how you look at the sky when you come out of the building."