Theodora Keogh

Remembering Theodora Keogh today. Loved her Meg and now curious about her other books. She seemed to have a fierce dislike of publicity. I can't help wondering if she didn't grow up with pathologically narcissistic family abuse and this was an inspiration for some of her writing.

Theodora Keogh on Wikipedia.

Her obit in January Magazine. By Brooks Peters. By Judy Laddon. A pic of the margay

that chewed off Theodora's ear in The Chelsea Hotel. A marvelous, elegantly simple sketch of Theodora asleep by her husband, Tom Keogh.

Theodora Keogh on Google Books.

Curious now, as a happy tangent, via Judy Laddon's blog to read Sally: A True Story
The Older Woman's Illustrated Guide to Self-Improvement



Apparently, Sally had a ménage à trois with Theodora and her husband, Tom Keogh.

Pics of Theodora on Google Images.

A beautiful blog post about Theodora on the Brooks Peters' site.

Flickr and ffffl*ckr

My flickr favorites and on ffffl*ckr.

In the mood for cobalt blue.

The Gate in the Rocks (1818)
Karl Friedrich Schinkel 1781 - 1841

Twilight: Interior (Reading by lamplight)
Sir George Clausen RA 1852 – 1944

Three large butterflies on irises and lilies
Edward Julius Detmold 1883-1957


Moon at Magome
Kawase Hasui 1883 – 1957


Heroes Of Asgard illustration c.1930
Charles Edmund Brock 1870 – 1938

Scattered and okay with that

madamjujujive prompted me tonight to blog and I've been in the mood lately. So here goes, again, after a year and a half.

It's a rainy, gloomy day here in Hell's Kitchen. Night now but that rain hangover feeling.

I miss the night sky, real stars. Need to go the country long enough to see the Milky Way as I did this summer. Comparing a city sky with a country sky.


So I was reading this Reddit post today about a guy who found a tracking device on his car when he took it to the shop to get it fixed and am pretty appalled to know that the driveway of a house is considered public and therefore it's not illegal to plant a tracking device. The thread included this link to a divorcenet advice site about snooping, what's legal and what is not.

It's too early, I know, but I like Christmas songs all year round. This one is very silly. MeFite puny human thinks it's Leon Redbone but I think it's somebody else. It reminds me of that Singing Horses thing at the beginning of the internet, well, 10 years ago. Funny, to think of 10 years ago as so long in internet time.

Wow, what a bedroom.













Have noticed that the word, pareidolia, one that I'd never heard of until a couple of years ago, is increasingly commonplace on the web?



So happy to read that now one can order blood tests online. Life Extension Foundation blood tests are even better. No pooh poohing by a doctor about it not being necessary. If I'd only been able to do this as I wanted, way back in the 1990's I could have nipped the 3 cancers I'm dealing with in the bud. I always wanted to take cancer blood tests and was not permitted by any doctor I went to. And it's so affordable!

Omg, I didn't think of using carrot juice in making rice. Sounds delicious.

Su Blackwell's cut book art is just my cup of awesome. Brian Dettmer meets Cornell meets Peter Callesen.

Starting with joy and fun. Frostie the dancing cockatoo.

First post. Starting this blog with a smile. Frostie, the dancing cockatoo grooves to Shake A Tail Feather. Found on MaryDellamorte's MetaFilter post.


How interesting that parrots can hear music in the way humans do, with an impulse to dance to the rhythm. This brings me much joy and amazement.

The Michael Jackson of birds


A group bird dance that is my very favorite. The starlings on Otmoor in their twilight ballet


Synchronization to an auditory beat is referred to as entrainment.

huh. That's so interesting. I wonder why it's called entrainment? It seems such an unlikely term. The term on Wikipedia.

From Adena Schachner's page:
When speaking to infants, adults in all cultures modify their speech to have a higher pitch, greater pitch variability, slower speed, and longer pauses. Our research has suggested that young infants' social preferences can be modified by the presence or absence of this infant-directed speech.

That works in communicating with dogs and cats too.

She says:

We suggest that infants encode the appropriateness of vocal behavior and use that information to guide subsequent preference for individual social partners, an ability that may serve as an important foundation for social reasoning.

"social reasoning" Good term.

The Neural Basis of Human Dance

This makes sense to me how music changes mood, inspires exercise. It also seems that music and language are intertwined in the brain.

On another blog, Music Matters: a blog on music cognition, it seems Snowball the dancing cockatoo really made global history in the world of neuroscience, around the planet. Just shows me how what may seem like a funny video posted to YouTube could be perceived in so many different ways and even be of tremendous scientific importance.

Years ago I saw a documentary about the cultural anthropology of dance, in which the evolution of dance was described as moving from 2 dimensionally up and down, forward and back, side to side, then to gyrating 3 dimensionally. I seem to remember that farmer societies danced side to side or in circles.

Interesting for me to think of these areas of the brain that overlap: music, rhythm, math, dance, language/communicating, emotions, socializing.