Stitz, you have mentioned orchids in conversations again. Do people say?"Don't mind him, he's from Baltimore". The great orchid growers all have one thing in common. They spend hours and hours every day talking to their orchids. I'm not a great orchid grower but i do spend hours talking to them every day. Switch that love to the sun or the moon or major planets and you have astronomers in ancient times watching and wondering. In another thread, there is a discussion about breeding dogs. You feed the dogs name into a computer or some such and it says that it will be an OK parent. My prediction in the brave new world is that boy will find girl and before love finds a way, they will have to have their genome checked by a computer. How Romantic!. Have to ask my son about Methane seeping from the sea floor and if this is a terrrible thing. I imagine Methane is seeping up all over the place from coal seams and oil fields? The word seeping doesn't apply to the Methane produced by cows and sheep and i believe the figure for Australia is that 11% of the carbon emissions comes from agriculture. Must ask about what happen to Methane once it is in the atmosphere. Does it just stay there or does something break it down. There is a problem with a lot of those "Science" shows on TV. Many of them are light on Science and heavy with padding. Watched the Doomsday thing and wonder about people who get religion in a strong way. They are so certain about everything. Perhaps that is better than being a fuzzy thinker like me.

We had a partial kitchen in the basement laundry room of my parents' last house in the burbs of Detroit (I lived there from 8th grade until I left for college). The laundry room had a large double sink (laundry room type, not kitchen sink), an old electric stove (probably about 42 inch with 2 ovens), an old sxs frig, and a large pass through/serving counter area that could be used as a prep area as well as staging area. It was very useful when we had large parties (about every other month). Our upstairs kitchen was fairly small and only had room for my mom & I to work in (we had a great system worked out so we didn't run into each other). Some basements in our area (1970s & 80s suburban homes mostly 2 story) have partial kitchens in the basements. Our next door neighbor has a large ranch home so the basement is quite a bit larger than most in our subdivision. The original owner who we were friends with put in quite a nice basement kitchen. It was almost as nice as their upstairs kitchen, just somewhat smaller. They entertained a lot and used both kitchens to the max. I think a second kitchen would be great, especially in the summer to keep the heat out of the main living spaces. Ideal place for canning, too.

At long last. I'll try not to write too much as most of you have probably sent your books back to the library or have become hazy about the plot. My copy started with 'Camera' which was just as well as I think 'Eye' would have been difficult to start with and put me off continuing. BTW my 'picture' at 'Eye' . . the odd pair of eyes . . . is taken from a del Cossa picture of St Lucy who's eyes were gouged out when she was put to death. I checked out the various friezes mentioned in the book and available to down-load. Not easy to get clear images but at least I felt I had a better idea of the various characters del Cossa had painted. Did anyone notice there is quite a bit about the detail of St Francis Ferrer in the 'Camera' section, as George studies the painting in the National Gallery but little mention of it by del Cossa in 'Eye'? I had no trouble in accepting the 1960's pre-theme and didn't read anything too special in it. It provided a period in which Smith based Carol (the mother) who is quite hippy-ish in her way of life/outlook. Nor did the lack of speech marks and odd words scattered about . . . once I had got used to them. In fact it forced me to be more alert to the various 'conversations' in case I missed something. The 'Camera' setting of Cambridge is where Smith lives and presumably mixes among the intelligentsia so I suppose it isn't surprising that George is much brighter than the average teenager. The hospital, Addenbrookes, where G's Mother dies and where G cycles round part of the lay-out of the gene and photos the double helix, are all there in real life. I wonder if this part of 'Camera' is telling us about the 'twist' in history (as the DNA spiral is depicted) when G says "What if the received notions of history were deceptive." As to the characters. I felt very sorry for both Georgia and Henry (who at first I though much younger than he actually was . . more of a toddler). Their Father seemed a distant rather ineffectual figure and G is left to look after the boy/cook the meals etc. although Smith doesn't make a big thing of it. And what was it about the damp patch on the wall in her bedroom? Did it have some significance that I've missed? The Mother, for me, seems quite a believable 'her-own-woman' sort of character. How many people would just up and take the children away to Italy for a few days? She shows guts and obviously is happy to put two fingers up at authority, in true hippy style. She tries to make George think at an adult level, which perhaps leaves G more vulnerable after her death. Helena, another very bright girl, comes in and out of G's life too briefly. I feel, if Camera had been a story on its own H could have played a greater part/been developed more. Mrs Rock? Did anyone mention her? Is her name meant to imply some sort of security for G; she seems to have no one else rooting for her? I liked the way she answers a question with a question or repeats back the same sentence. I have a friend, something of a Social Worker who does that same thing; it can drive you mad. Lisa Goliard? Obviously someone who Carol was attached to in the past, but so little information is given about her and why does G thinks she was/is a spy? Is she maybe the link between the now and then? George sees her in the National Gallery and apparently follows her to her house . . or so del Cossa 'says'. Very confusing. I cannot think that the second part (for me) of 'Eye' is meant to be written by George and Helena, they wouldn't have had either the skill or knowledge of mid-fifteenth century Italy. Why has del Cossa been taken forward in time? No idea, unless it is just because of the length of time G spends staring at the St Francis picture, as though he has been temporarily resurrected. I couldn't see the point of making del Cossa a female, nor the mention by some here about pornography; I hardly noticed it, (although the male review writers in the papers did!) I was more annoyed by del Cossa' using the word cause instead of 'because' on almost every page. Finally I think 'tomatoes' was just an error. I also noticed 'breeches' which I don't think were worn back then; still to be invented! So, I've still written too much but must say it made me think outside my comfort zone, but I don't think I would read this type of book again too soon. Rather too clever for everyday comfort. Final thought; all the way through reading this in my mind's background I kept 'hearing' I am a Camera

This bounces light off the white ceiling and gives a more ambient light than pointing them down at the floor. It's indirect lighting and much kinder than cutting holes all over 150-200 year old intact ceilings. Aha. Thanks, pal, makes sense. I have been in any number of houses of people from this generation, either tread on lightly, like this one, when they moved in, or 1960s-70s era renovations (which may have been necessary in a shell). And the house looks exactly the same 40-50 years later when it gets put up for sale. I've seen a couple of these in the last year alone. I appreciate your local insights. Thank you. Such a very different approach to what you find nowadays. And given what you say is coming (sob...), it seems even more of a crime after previous owners opted for the treading lightly approach. On the other hand I am not sure that someone undertaking such a journey at that time would keep quiet about it, or be be able to do it privately. Journals and long letters were a compulsion and expectation then. Much like this era's social media : ) . Very much along the lines of "Pictures or it didn't happen". There's actually a book called "American Travellers Abroad: A Bibliography of Accounts Published Before 1900" by Harold Frederick Smith which runs to several hundred pages covering a little over 100 years. And there were American passports, from about 1775 onward (with a break for the years under the Articles of Confederation). Some of the earliest ones were designed by Ben Franklin and based on the French passport. And not only did the Dept of State take over the issuing in 1789, but various cities and states, and even notaries public, issued their own. But the main restrictions to free travel to Greece would have been more external -- Greece under the Ottomans and as part of the Empire, then the War of Independence, the Napoleonic Wars etc. James Biddle, Nick's great-great-grandson, was born at Andalusia and died there too. From his 2005 obit in the NY Times: James Biddle, a leader in preserving America's homes and landscapes of historic value, including Andalusia, his family's 19th-century estate near Philadelphia, died at home there yesterday. He was 75. He died in his sleep of natural causes, his family said. As president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Mr. Biddle, known as Jimmy, defended architectural landmarks like Grand Central Terminal and the original exterior of the United States Capitol. Years earlier, he was instrumental in raising the money to save Olana, the Moorish manor perched above the Hudson River that was built by the artist Frederic Edwin Church. "We Americans must decide if we want to preserve what we have or if we just want to pave it over, high-rise it and factory it," he wrote in Travel Leisure magazine in 1972. In his 12 years at the National Trust, the organization reached beyond the East Coast to designate historic sites as far away as California, and it began awarding grants and loans to support neighborhood preservation projects. When he left in 1980, the trust's membership had grown to 150,000, from 13,000. Mr. Biddle was previously a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. There he expanded the American Wing's collection to include pieces from not only Colonial era but also from the 19th century on, acquiring elaborately carved furniture by John Henry Belter. There he expanded the American Wing's collection to include pieces from not only Colonial era but also from the 19th century on, acquiring elaborately carved furniture by John Henry Belter. "He had a great sense for domestic spaces," said Morrison H. Heckscher, chairman of the American Wing. "He had a tremendous sense of design, and he was particularly noted for the way he could put together a room." Mr. Biddle's expertise in historical furnishings was sought by first ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson, by President Richard M. Nixon in assembling a team to coordinate the country's bicentennial celebration, and by committees in charge of renovating governors' mansions. Enamored of the home, he often expressed his hope that some historical landmarks would remain occupied rather than simply becoming museums. He embraced that ideal by restoring and preserving the 100-acre estate acquired in 1814 by his great-great-grandfather, the financier Nicholas Biddle. Andalusia, which sits along the Delaware River, remains a 19th-century tribute to ancient Greek architecture and a repository of antique French, English and American furniture and draperies. A national historic landmark, it is open to the public by appointment. Mr. Biddle was born at Andalusia on July 8, 1929. He attended St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., and graduated from Princeton, where he studied art and archaeology. He served in an intelligence unit of the Army during the Korean War. In 1955, he joined the Met as a curatorial assistant. He became associate curator of the American Wing in 1961 and curator in 1963. He left in 1967 to lead the National Trust until 1980, when he became a consultant to Sotheby Parke Bernet and chairman of the National Preservation Institute.