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Loose Talk of the Town

Mosque, Ow, on the Hudson

Some blasts from the vuvuzela. I used to play instruments, not just blow my own horn.

While avoiding graven images, there’s no writ against craven puns.

Mosque, ow, on the Hudson? Saying where houses of worship do not belong raises all sorts of red flags, no matter the neighborhood, no matter the religion. How could a house of prayer in the vicinity of New York’s Ground Zero not be a splendid idea? Besides, Moscow on the Hudson is recalled as a delightful movie from 1984; I wonder if it’s dated?

Ground Zero? Ground Zero Mostel!

Now there’s a Jewish radical with humor and chutzpah. I remember Zero Mostel best for appearances with Jim Henson’s Muppets. He is quoted as saying of Henson: “He has the best possible actors. If you have a disagreement with them, you can always use them to wash your car.” Ground Mostel, a real New Yorker.

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Foodie program: Tomatoes no longer are tomatoes. A couple of the major frozen pizza brands, I saw when shopping this week, state in their ingredients list, “tomatoes (water and tomato paste).” In reaction I bought a Wal-Mart Great Value (house brand) pie. Its sauce ingredients start as, “Water, Tomato paste.” As it should be.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Weeks ago I checked ingredients of canned crushed tomatoes for homemade marinara. If you think “crushed tomatoes” implies squished tomatoes, juice, salt and of course some preservatives to make it taste American — well, check the ingredients. Some don’t have “tomatoes” at all, just tomato paste and related materials.

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On Aug. 4, 1998, My Beloved and I began the basic tools of The Artist’s Way. On a free afternoon while running the Beaver Town Inn we saw a flyer at a Eureka Springs bookshop that Lisa Martinovic would be teaching a weekly workshop on the book in Fayetteville. Sounded just what we needed at that point in our lives. It was. We each bought a copy of the Julia Cameron volume, so we could scribble in them with ease. The class created our circle of friends in Fayetteville, partly inspiring our move there. What the book taught has been part of our lives since, especially me. Worth marking it on the calendar ever year. “Morning pages” in longhand are a miracle. No shortcuts.

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