Pictures!

A fresh batch of photographic views (as opposed to your scribe's usual written ones) has arrived, and the stories they have to tell are many and varied. So let's get started (remember to click on the pics for the wide-screen view):

Here are some pictures of Hamilton Avenue students and parents picketing the Board of Ed building after the unspeakable Betty Sternberg unilaterally shut the school down for a week so she could arrange busing schedules for them (bringing busing to Greenwich has been a primary objective of hers since day one; she is determined to destroy the neighborhood school system, the Gifted and Talented program, and anything else that might possibly inure to educational excellence in our Town). See the earlier post, Same Old, Same Mold, for more of the gory details.

Continuing the theme of Why Betty Sternberg Should be Tarred and Feathered and Ridden Out of Town on a Rail, here you can see some signage outside one of our local schools:

And here is some signage across from the library suggesting the direction that many of the staff wish that so-called Director Mario Gonzales would take:

These are the moldy modular classrooms that the Board of Ed foisted off on the Town by saying it would be more economical to buy them than to lease them (the original plan). Well, we own them, folks - aren't they lovely?

On a happier note, as it were, here we have Malcolm Archer and the Quiristers of Winchester College rehearsing a setting of "God Bless America" as an encore for their concert at Christ Church the next day. Malcolm addressed the assembled singers, one of whom was a woman faculty member, as "guys", showing that the Pond is continuing to shrink in size as we and the English borrow more and more of our speech mannerisms from each other.

Signs of spring at the Bush-Holley House:

And at the Yale library:

Below is one of the exhibits in the sculpture garden at the recently-renovated Yale Art Gallery. Behind the stone wall lies the fabled "Tomb" of Skull & Bones, several patriarchs of which were instrumental in saving back-country Greenwich, along with much of north Stamford, Bedford, and Pound Ridge, from being handed over to the United Nations in 1946 for a new international headquarters. Can you imagine what a mess that would have been, dear reader? Everything from the Audubon Society's tract to the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation would have been swallowed in its giant maw, not to mention a bunch of hapless towns and villages. Three cheers for the old-boy network of Skull & Bones!

This is a Salvador Dali unicorn at the newly-opened Galerie Zama. What's going on here? Is the lovely golden woman dead, or merely sleeping? What is the drop of liquid depending from the unicorn's horn? Is it blood? Some other bodily fluid? There is also a pendulum-like trickle coming down the front of the green brick wall; on the base a series of sundial-like lines reinforce the fact that this piece was part of a suite about time.

Well, that's it for now. Time to pop a fresh roll of film in the camera and see what else is going on around our fair Town.

Rape and Pillage, Part II

Well, gentle reader, it's now official: cultural vandals Rene and Marie-France Kern will be demolishing the historic McCutcheon/Malley house at 36 Mayo Avenue that has guarded the entrance to Belle Haven since 1888. One of the few remaining Richardsonian-Romanesque houses in America is slated to be reduced to a heap of rubble and carted off into history. Soon, no doubt, we will be treated to an ugly McMansion as soulless as the people who have wrought this vandalism.

A last-ditch effort by preservationist William Schneider has fallen short. "We have to give up on it, unfortunately," he is quoted as saying. And so another icon of Greenwich history bites the dust.

Vandal Marie-France Kern is reported to have said, "It's a private matter and it should stay private." Yeah, right, Marie-France, you bet, sure thing. That's like telling the peasants starving for bread to eat cake. What is it with Frenchwomen that makes them always seem to miss the point?

No, Marie-France, it is not a private matter, and it should not be treated as such. You are destroying part of our Town's heritage, and it is the business of every citizen of Greenwich. Shame on you, and shame on Rene. You will be gone in a few years, but the devastation you will have wreaked will be irreversible.

A private matter indeed! When the first wrecking ball hits those granite stones, the curse of the McCutcheons will fall on you and your hired minions. The ghosts of generations of the Malley family will haunt you. Your sleep in your wretched new McMansion will be unquiet. Eventually you will leave town, perhaps to return to France, where you can boast of your exploits of destruction. After all, you will say, the house was only 120 years old - a mere bagatelle compared to the Louvre or Notre Dame. And of course, you will add, the people who built it and lived in it were only Americans.

As you mete, so shall it be measured to you again, says the Bible. Karma will ensure that, as it always has. And you have stirred up enough bad karma to last for, well, at least 120 years. What is it the Bible says about sins being visited to the third and the fourth generation? 120 years sounds just about right for that.

Some of you may think, dear readers, that your scribe is verging towards bitterness. Not at all - heaven forfend. He is merely stating facts.

Have a nice life, Marie-France and Rene. See, gentle reader? No bitterness here.

The Next Survivor Series

My blogbuddy Malicious Intent ("M.I." to her friends) has come up with an absolute howler. I wish I'd written it, but then again, I'm glad I didn't. The price of her hard-earned knowledge and deft irony is simply too high for most men, your scribe included.

Faithful readers of these pages may remember that M.I. was the source of the post, "Why the Town Fathers Won't Allow a Holiday Inn in Greenwich". She didn't actually write that one, but passed it on to the rest of us. This one she did write, and it's a masterpiece! Click on the link to see her original post.

The Next Survivor Series

Married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.

Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.

He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.

He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.

The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.

The men must shave their legs, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails manicured and eyebrows groomed.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each man will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name.Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

The kids vote them off the island based on performance.

The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right To be called Mother!

After you get one laughing, send this to as many females as you think will get a kick out of it and as many men as you think can handle it.

Just don't send it back to me.... I'm going to bed!