November 14, 2008

At the Sun Glass Café....

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... where we love shadows and light, transparency and obscurity, you can talk about what you want.

14 comments:

George M. Spencer said...

The number and variety of economic horror stories is beyond belief....

International freight shipping has collapsed...

"Trading has virtually come to a standstill, because there is no cargo for the ships. There has also been no trading of vessels in the last few weeks, so there is no market value out there for companies' capital investment in their ships."

And this, from Forbes....

"To judge from the crystal ball of debt markets, next year will bring some incredible calamity, maybe a depression, maybe worse. Bond prices suggest that nearly one in five companies with high-yield debt could slip into bankruptcy.

"Spreads are more than ridiculous," said David Kotok, chairman of Cumberland Advisors in Vineland, N.J. "Either we have dysfunctional credit markets evidenced by absurd pricing, or the market pricing is accurately forecasting the Great Depression of 2009, '10, '11, '12 and '13."

Chip Ahoy said...

Today's Special

Maki sushi rolled with American breakfast ingredients.

The innumerable advantages of home made broth.

Ernesto Ariel Suárez said...

That is an...hm...interesting (?) rug...

rhhardin said...

Leagal bureaucracy figured in a pic not an hour ago. Note the promised land.

Ohio bonus, pics to the right and left as well. Actually I was just waiting for a sun to hit the right place, which it never did.

According to the weather radar it's raining ten miles away, but not advancing as predicted.

Ann Althouse said...

Chip, you eat chicken bits straight from the freezer?

Hazy Dave said...

I was wondering if you're getting more sun in Madison than we are today, but I see that's a Saturday photo from two weeks ago... It's been much cloudier this week, and it's well past the peak of the fall colors now. I like the photo, though.

Ann Althouse said...

I just noticed this picture today, sitting in my camera. I don't remember why I took it. I don't normally just take 1 picture like that. I guess the shadows amused me.

Trooper York said...

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, the Next Generation

Yankee's Locker Room Spring Training February 9, 2009

Jorge Posada: Hey Jeter, what’s with all these bottles of water in A-Rods locker? Is that Red Bull or Vita Water or something new?
Derek Jeter: I think it’s that kabala water that he gets from Madonna. Here give it to me.
Jorge Posada: What are you gonna do?
(Jeter opens the bottle, pours out the water and pisses in it)
A-Rod:( strolls into the clubhouse) Hey guys how’s it going.
Joba Chamberlin: Great Mr. Rodriquez. We were just talking about you.
Jorge Posada: Yeah how’s it going comprade. Did you bang that skanked out crone last night or did you stick your dick in the Venetian blind instead?
Derek Jeter: Com’on guys. Leave the big guy alone. He finally found his soul mate. Give the man a break.
A-Rod: Thanks Jeets. We just fit together like two peas in a pod. Here have some kabala water. It will do wonders for you.
Jorge Posada: No thanks man. I’m a Catholic. We don’t drink holy water.
Joba Chamberlin: Yeah and I am an Indian. We don’t drink fire water.
A-Rod: Well that’s a shame. It will do wonders for your soul. (A-Rod opens the bottle and takes a big gulp) What the fu..........Jeter!!!

Anonymous said...

Trooper's a hard act to follow, but I thought I'd re-do a comment I put up in another thread about gay marriage, etc.  The Sun Glass Café reminded me of all the stained glass windows I recently saw in France, and the Althouse being lightweight and flaky thing on this post reminded me of all the croissants I ate.  Althouse should have added a 4th category of "Mmm...Croissants." Can't get France out of my mind.

Anyway, not to spill controversies over into a café, I will say that I support a complete separation of civil and religious marriage. Many people want us to imitate Europe in every way, so why not in this?  We could do them one better and take the very small step of making secular marriage gender-neutral.  Here's how the strict separation of civil and religious marriage looks in practice:

I was in France on business the other week. I took the train to a very pretty Paris suburb and was waiting across the street from the station for my ride to the convention I was attending. Several well-dressed people came out of the station and were walking up the hill to the local town hall. One of the women in the group, seeing I was well-dressed and waiting, asked if I was part of the party? My reply in miserable French immediately gave me away as having nothing to do with whatever local fête she was talking about. The woman apologized for bothering me in very good, British-accented English.

My ride called to tell me she would be late, so I went into the local café. While I was sitting there, nursing a café au lait and a croissant and looking out the window, some of the party I'd seen earlier emerged from the mairie, this time with a veiled bride and slightly hyper groom en suite.

They all walked in cheery excitement to the ugly, ochre-colored 1830's church up the street, into which they disappeared, and in which the Catholic Church no doubt placed its blessing on a mode of life that the very secular republic français had earlier registered and enrolled.

The café au lait was excellent, the wild currant preserves and Prèsident butter on the croissant delicious, and together with my having witnessed a classic scene of French bourgeois life, it all cast a glow over the day, and gave me hope that it will all work out somehow.

I was told that they had to get the civil ceremony over quickly, as the mairie was closing at noon because of the upcoming train strike.  The strike was one reason I spent 3 hours that night being driven back to the apartment in Paris where we were staying, through gridlock traffic that dispelled the glow of the morning, and would have done the worst of New York proud.

You know those Europeans really do most everything better than we do, although it does seem to work out somehow.

Trooper York said...

Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend, the Next Generation

Jorge Posada: Hey they have a big spread about A-Rod and Madonna in the Post’s Page Six today. It says here he writes her love notes. Jeeez what a maricon!
Derek Jeter: I bet she sends him little gifts too. I bet he gets little tokens from a lot of his girls.
Jorge Posada:Whadda ya mean by that Jeets?
Derek Jeter: Oh you’ll see.
A-Rod: (saunters into the locker room) Hey chico’s hows it hanging?
Joba Chamberlin: Like laundry on cleaning day Mr. Rodriquez.
Jorge Posada: What the fuck?
Derek Jeter: That must be a Nebraska expression man.
Joba Chamberlin: You seem to have gotten a lot of fan male this week Mr. Rodriquez.
A-Rod: I always do. My public loves me.
Jorge Posada:Yeah all the booing must be for somebody else when you get up there big guy.
Joba Chamberlin: You sure got a lot of packages.Here’s one from Miss Madonna.
A-Rod: Oh man, she sends me little gifts ….lets see….oh man a Victoria Secrets box…what’s this…Depends…..used Depends with vagina ring stuck in it…what the fu….Jeter!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

You know, I was going to put up a little something about the stained glass windows at Chartres, but I think I'll wait.

They do have some lovely, thornless white roses in the garden, symbolically honoring Our Lady, but I think they had a different Madonna in mind.

But, hey, Althouse is entertainment dynamite. Where else can you be reminded of economic collapse, find a weird sushi recipe, look at strange yet boring pictures, read grotesque tales of A-Rod and Madonna, read about marriage in France, and be reminded of roses dedicated to the Virgin Mary, all in one thread?

Welcome to the blogospheric equivalent of Six Flags' Batman, the Ride.

Bob W. said...

Somewhere between A-Rod, Madonna, and Financial apocalypse, the new watchmen movie trailer is up; looks pretty good, I may have to dig through my old box full of 12-sided die, monster manuals, and orc figurines to find and re-read the original comics!.

Trooper York said...

Dude, the union of A-Rod and Madonna is going to be a financial
apocalypse.

Well for A-Rod anyway.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Anonymous said...

If this is the Sun Glass Café, I am damn well going to put up pictures of stained glass windows, but not of Chartres.  The ones we took are too dark, and Chartres should not be mentioned in the same breath as A-Rod and Madonna.

No, this isn't Six Flags, either, but it is a kind of Disneyland attraction.  Think of it as Medieval Land:  It's Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.  It's a bit too gaudy for Disney, however, which shows that Saint Louis wasn't all Crusades and high-mindedness.  He had to have some fun, although "fun" for him seems to have meant a visit to Christ's Crown of Thorns, for which he paid some serious cash, and for which he built this little church, consecrated in 1248.  It gets better on the inside.  Louis housed the Crown of Thorns in a heavy gold chest up here.  The gold chest was melted down during the Revolution.  Somebody had to pay for all those guillotines.

Louis also had the Image of Edessa and other relics, most of which went missing during the Revolution.

You can get a better idea of the place here, here, here, here, here, and here.  You've seen those colors before.  Name your amusement park. Understatement was not a Medieval concept.  Here's a shot of one of the rose windows that were added later in the 15th century.  Here is a window wall illuminated from the opposite side, and here is one of the windows in the late afternoon sun.  There is also a lower chapel, which served as the parish church for residents of the palace complex.

You can see why I had to put these pictures in the Sun Glass Café.  This is probably the world's second-best collection of stained glass, two-thirds of which is original.  Chartres beats it in composition, story-telling, and sheer beauty, but Chartres is a holy place that demands time and is not for everybody.

All visitors go, "Oh, Wow!" instantly when they walk into the Sainte-Chapelle, which was, of course, the idea back in 1248.

If you haven't done so already, when you visit Paris, you owe it to yourself to take the tour of the Conciergerie and Sainte-Chapelle.  The whole complex is part of the Ministry of Justice, which houses the central courts, so you can see the French police in action moving prisoners in and out, lawyers in funny outfits, the grim and famous towers of the Conciergerie, and even visit one of the places where guilliotines were set up.  No photos of that, unfortunately.  You have to go through courthouse security for the tour, because, well, you are in a courthouse.

Sun, glass and law.