The Bar. (L&D's own chatroom)

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You know where it's nice while one takes an Interstate Highway?

I-66, going towards I-95. It goes through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Spectacular scenery.

I've had transcendent moments, too, driving through Maine from the western border with Canada to Calais, Maine. Classical music really can't be beat within the mountains! It's not for the faint of heart, though.

When I retire, I'm going to buy (or lease?) an RV.

Take it across the US, staying in RV parks. You can meet all sorts of people in these places--and you don't have to be hypersocial either. Just do a barbecue...and chew the fat.

Would you like Today's Special: Lobster Bisque as an appetizer. Lobster tails with cheesey bowtie pasta as the entrée. Various types of Mousses for dessert.

Hi Kraftie! So nice to see you this evening. I feel better already. I am a BIG fan of water, in almost any form, it is the best. I am not a big train buff either, but I do like watching them, particularly ones with nice graffiti, in art circles we refer to that as the "traveling art show." My only problem with trains is their horns. I need ear plugs for that.

By all means, please play Stevie. I think I like all of his music, that I have heard.

I actually like to drive on long trips. Highways are the best, and beautiful scenery makes it even better. I love it in winter when water runs off of he cuts in the rock and freezes into those still waterfalls...spectacular! I can drive pretty well, but city driving makes me quite nervous, and I have to really concentrate. Also, I get lost when I go to a new place like, the first four times. I have never experienced an RV trip. I might like to try it.

Yes, I will have the lobster with lobster! Thanks!

I didn't like some of the PRACTITIONERS of graffiti art in the 1970s---but the art itself can be really great. I experienced it growing up, and being a young adult, in New York City. Some of those kids were cool; but some really weren't--some also practiced robbery on the side.

In "Saturday Night Fever," Tony Manero is on a real "RR" train (it now runs along the "N" line). There was graffiti all over the train car. The only problem: the taggers used to also write over the subway maps.

The real colorful graffiti art didn't start until about 1975 or so; before then, it was just somebody writing out "Viva 125 was here" or something like that. I never actually wrote on illegal walls---but they had a special wall for people to write graffiti on. My name was "Viva 125" when I was 13.

I understand. I was a kiddo in the 70's, plus, I live in podunk, so I do not have those experiences of early graffiti artists. But Keith Haring was using chalk in the NYC subways at that time...he *was* considered the "King of the Art School Graffiti Artists."
There is also the social/political graffiti artist, Banksi. Here is his version of a municipal worker washing graffiti (cave art from Lascaux cave in France) off the wall!

I, too, have trouble viewing simple "tagging" as an art form.

I hope I'm not talking too much!

Before about 1976, skateboards had a different character. They had steel wheels instead of urethane wheels. There were still roller skates which you opened with a key. There was a song about such roller skates sung by Melanie in 1972, known as "Brand New Key."

Keith Haring, tragically, passed away from AIDS in the early 90s.

The bottom painting looks just like some cave paintings done (in either France or Spain) circa 20,000 BC.

One of the most amazing works of art is the Venus sculpture, with exaggerated feminine attributes, which was said to have been done circa 25,000 to 30,000 BC.

Of course you are not talking too much! I come here to enjoy your conversation!
You are right about Haring, most of the money he made he donated to AIDS research foundations, and his work today, which is still reproduced in all sorts of formats, still supports AIDS research.
Yes, the cave art actually combines a few different periods and a few different caves. The figure you speak of used to be called the "Venus of Willendorf" but art historians (such as myself) discarded that title about 15 years ago, since there is no evidence of any sort to suggest she (or her muli-shaped, multi-sized, multi-region of origin) counterparts represent anything to do with love, fertility, goddesses, or beauty. We used to have "arm-chair archaeologists" who hired ditch-diggers to go out and find "antiquities" that they could say something "educated" about. Now, we rely on hard facts and evidence, so some titles and interpretations have changed. I am definitely talking too much!!

*Beware of teacher: she has a history of monologue-ing !

No...you are not talking too much. You are offering an interesting perspective. And I like the way you presented it. Showing your intelligence, but not downgrading someone else's intelligence. That's the way new theories should be presented.

I can't help but see the exaggerated feminine attributes in the Venus of Willendorf. I'll have to read some of the revisionist work on it.

One of my "special interests" as a child happened to be evolutionary anthropology. When I would get thrown out of class in junior high, I would create "family trees" of Man's origins.

This Bar: the only Bar where we can Boogie to "Flashlight"--then, two minutes later, discuss Paleoanthropology.

I'll have to look up the origins of the name "10 o'clock Scholar"--but this Bar has a fine resemblance to at least the idea of the "10 o'clock Scholar."

Well, those are some of the best things about this bar!! The boogie-ing, the discussions, the clientele! Give me Geeky conversations or give me silence, I say!

You are right about the "Statuette of a Woman, Willendorf, Austria" she does have very exaggerated sexual features. That part is not being called into question, more the why, and the by whom parts. Historically it was assumed these (there are lots, some are thin, some old, some young, etc..) were made by men, for men, so to speak. Yet, there are no male statuettes at all. Recent scholarship suggests they may have been made by women, as teaching tools, magical protective amulets (tiny enough to wear around the neck or carry in a skin bag), representations of symbolic "clan mothers" (no faces, ever, so probably not directly representational) and maybe even as symbols of a sort of 'wealth' or well-being. This is because it would have been next to impossible to build up that very obese body type in Paleolithic Austria! Chances are good that we will never really understand the intentions...5,000 years from now, I wonder what sort of god people will think "Uncle Sam" was! That would be a fun one to try to explain!

That's plausible, too. In many so-called "primitive" societies, there are religious/fraternal/sororital societies for women and men. Frequently, the esoteric knowledge gained within these gender-based organizations are not shared with the opposite gender.

This idea was extant in western society until very, very recently. That each gender had esoteric knowledge which should not be passed along to the opposite gender--that this passing along of esoterica had the character of a taboo.

I grew up with the idea that men should not interfere, or inquire into, "womens matters."

I still feel that men should understand that women, sometimes, just need to keep certain things private.

LOL....They would think of Uncle Sam as anachronistic--dressed up in 19th century garb even in the 21st century. That he never acquired modern clothes. I guess this was because this was an example of an idealized America in the 19th century that's been passed over generations.

Interestingly enough, I did not realize this until very recently; I just took for granted the image of Uncle Sam, and just didn't really closely study him.

You are quite perceptive! Once we, as a society, establish an ideal for a thing, it will "die" in the sense that it gets stuck in a time warp and does not re-adapt to changing societal needs. Then we tell ourselves that the thing has "always been that way" and was "never intended to change" because it is sacred/inviolable and so forth. Humans are funny.

While I do not perceive big differences in gender myself, I realize that many other people do. We have invented many of the ways that we claim men and women differ but, on the biological front, there are two or three significant differences. I was raised in a home that tried to enforce strict sex roles. That didn't work! I played with Star Wars figures and climbed trees and such.

I will say that there is something of romance maintenance to be had in keeping some things to oneself, or doing some activities in private.

Things have definitely changed in the gender front.

A few times in my life, especially when I was a teenager, I violated some "taboo" pertaining to "private womens issues" and got severely lambasted for it. Based on their reaction, I probably should have been more cognizant of this, and more sensitive.

One just has to be sensitive to that which really pushes people's buttons--really triggers something negative.

Even though I was wildly curious about how my grandmother experienced life in Russia when she was young, I never asked her about it. I feel that her time in Russia, combined with the immigration experience, conspired to close her mind to it, and made it painful to recall.

Same with my mother and her childhood. There's something which I must not breach, otherwise, Pandora's Box is opened.

Now....for a little "decadent" fun.....let us listen to: "Get up and Boogie" by Silver Convention.

I know where you are coming from there, I never "got" various sensitive spots that people had until it was too late. ugh. I couldn't understand being punished for transgressions that just didn't seem like they should be real things...oh well. If decadence is the air...then let us dance!! !

I love your conversation, but now I would like you take my hand and spin me around a bit!

Yep...early disco does that to you...gives you the urge to spin and Boogie!

Especially: "Hollywood Swinging," by Kool and the Gang!

And after this dance.....I can sense that you need a replenishing drink--what is your pleasure?