Do you have a radio controlled clock that receives the shortwave signal from the atomic clock in Colorado? Eric has a digital model in his room, but the analog “atomic clock” in the kitchen is old enough that it doesn’t know about the change in dates between Standard and Daylight Savings time. So Sunday morning it had fallen back. I switched the time zone setting to force it ahead by one hour. Because it’s an analog clock, this is how it’s done. Looks like a time-elapse effect from an old movie
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/AtomicClock.flv 440 330]
Category: Life with Pratts
That’s my theme
OK, one more try with the updated theme. The last time I published something with this theme enabled, when the page rendered, WordPress lost contact with the database. If it happens again I’ll say something pithy and clever like, “S**T!
TONIGHT! 48 Hours|Mystery
REMINDER! Watch 48 Hours|Mystery tonight at 10pm ET, on CBS.
48 Hours|Mystery — The Dr. Linda Goudey Murder
REMINDER! Watch 48 Hours|Mystery this Saturday at 10pm ET, on CBS.
A Better Day Than Chuck
D.F. Rogers and I have a saying we use sometimes. “I’m having a better day than Chuck”.
We knew Chuck in college. After graduation I met Carol, and by chance she became friends with Chuck’s future wife. Carol, Dennis and I went their wedding, 30 years ago. Yesterday was the fourteenth anniversary of Chuck’s death, in a plane he was piloting. God bless, Chuck.
Those Nazi Bastards
This past 3-day weekend I watched two movies. Both are about WWII — the fictional tragic romance Atonement, and The Counterfeiters, based on a true story. In this scene, the forger Salomon Sorowitsch uses his artistic talents to curry favor and improve his condition in the Mauthausen concentration camp.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/Counterfeiters.flv 448 252]
In this regard Sorowitsch paralleled Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, who survived Auschwitz by painting portraits for the Nazis, most notably the infamous Josef Mengele. Babbitt was later an artist at the Disney studio. Babbitt is still alive, and she’s trying to regain ownership of her Auschwitz paintings. In that effort she is being helped by two comic book artists — Neal Adams and Joe Kubert.
I knew an artist who escaped the Nazis. He was my drawing teacher in college. His name was Arno Maris.
Arno had been a champion gymnast in his native Holland. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was powerfully built. As I recall Arno telling me the story, after the Nazis had occupied the Netherlands, he took a row boat and, in the darkness of night, headed out into the open ocean, with no idea what would become of him. As luck would have it, he was picked up by a Merchant Marine ship, and he lived to tell the tale.
“Those Nazi bastards,” Arno would say, with great emphasis. In my mind right now I can still hear Arno talking to me, in that unmistakable Dutch accent of his, calling me “Dock-less.” Arno Maris was an excellent art instructor, and a wonderful man.