Today is World Smile Day

Harvey Ball with Smiley Face Image

Are you smiling?

Today has been designated World Smile Day by Harvey Ball of Worcestor, Massachusetts. He felt that one day a year should be devoted to smiling and doing acts of kindness; so, he began the first celebration on October 1, 1999.

"I made a circle with a smile for a mouth on yellow paper because it was a shiney and bright" he said in a 1966 interview with the Associated Press.

Ball is a commercial artist who first created the smiley face in 1963; he was hired by State Mutual Life Assurance Company as a free lancer to design a smiling face to boost company morale following a merger to two insurance companies. Its popularity grew slowly and then in the 1970's it exploded becoming very popular.

A stamp with the smiley face has been issued by the US Post Office.

So, have you done your act of kindness yet?

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The Global Word of the Month is Eleemosynary: What Does it Signify?

Our Word of the Month can be spelled in two ways: Eleemosynary as above or elimosinary.

Take your pick. The word derives from the Latin eleemosynarius which means of or relating to charity.

So, starting this October and continuing each and every day thereof (and next month, too) let's make it a a month of giving.

Our elimosinary actions need not be limited to cash donations to charities of our choice: the March of Dimes, The American Cancer Society, our local foodbanks, the homeless shelters, our churches, synagogues and mosques.

Our elimosinary activities can also include visiting the sick, lifting up the spirits of unemployed family members and friends, finding time to encourage and help our children with their studies, donating time to various fund raising activities such as thrift shops, auctions, car washes, etc.

It's a great month to give to others what we are so fortunate to have received ourselves.

So, let's go do it!

The Catharine Aiken School in Stamford Hired Georges Clemenceau the French Statesman and Journaist to teach French and Horseback Riding

Today is the birthday of Georges Clemenceau (September 28, 1841 - November 24, 1929) the noted journalist and physician who became the 72nd Prime Minister of France 1906-1909) and then the 85th Prime Minister (1917-1920).

In 1861, the twenty year old Clemenceau was living in Paris where he was pursuing his studies in medicine. He co-founded a weekly newspaper which promoted Republican causes; he spent 77 days in prison because he hung posters calling for a demonstration.

In May of 1865, he became a doctor; he also founded several magazines and penned articles which denounced the government of Napoleon III. He had to flee France for the United States because the government was rounding up dissidents for detention. He set sail for the US on July 25 of the same year.

Once in the United States, he opened a medical office on 12th Street in Manhattan and earned a living as a correspondent for a Parisian newspaper. Subsequently, he taught French and horseback riding at the Catherine Aiken School, a fashionable private girls school in Stamford.

According to the Stamford Historical Society, he eloped with one of his students, Mary Plummer (1850-1923) who he later married; he had three children with her and the marriage ended in divorce.

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Downtown Stamford : Alive with Small Acts of Kindness

It was raining very hard yesterday about 12:30 as I took care of some errands.

I was crossing Atlantic Ave. at the corner of Broad Street in the direction of Target.

Naturally, I was walking without an umbrella and the rain started to come down harder than ever!

I spotted the doorman from the Bank of America Building at #1 Atlantic with a beautiful blue and white patterned umbrella and as he walked by I mentioned to him: "Sure could use an umbrella like yours!"

Whereupon, said gentleman said to follow him toward the front door of his building and then gave me his umbrella saying: "Here, take it, it's yours!"

Automatically, I thanked him and walked across the street with an elderly Asian woman next to me who had witnessed the event.

As we both headed to Ferguson Library she commened: "There are still some good people in the city."

My new umbrella proudly sports the name Seaboard Properties 203-357-1600, www.seaboardproperties.com on it.

Thank you Seaboard and your commendable representative.

Albert C. Barnes Adds Late Renoirs to his Collection

Pierre Auguste Renoir, Washerwoman and Child, Ca. 1887

Oil on Canvas, The Barnes Collection

This blog is an update to my August 17th blog on the late Renoir exhibition that closed earlier this month at the Philadelphia Museum.

The inventor and art collector Albert C. Barnes of Philadelphia created the Barnes Foundation in 1922; amongst its 2500 objects are 800 paintings of which 181 are works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Barnes's interest in Renoir's works was sparked by his meeting Leo and Gertrude Stein at their famous apartment at 27, Rue de Fleuris in Paris in 1912. This began a 4 decade friendship between Leo Stein and Barnes. Both collectors developed a passion for collecting Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne and Renoir.

There is no doubt that Leo played up his deep admiration for the many late Renoirs he had purchased especially the Washerwoman and Child which hung on the studio wall of the Stein's' apartment. Indeed both Picasso and Braque, guests at the atelier, urged Leo to pay more attention to gallery exhibitions of Renoirs later works with an eye to having him add to his collection.

So, Barnes started buying up Renoirs at a rapid pace, snapping up 27 paintings between 1915-1916.

By 1920, Leo, who had split from his sister Gertrude, was in deep financial trouble; he was forced to sell 16 Renoir paintings to help him move to Italy. In these circumstances, Barnes was able to buy 8 of these paintings directly at cheap prices; shortly thereafter he indirectly acquired another five.

Why was Barnes so keen on buying late Renoirs? Here's a clue from his 1935 book entitled The Art of Renoir:

"...Renoir's career is a superlative example of all the essential characteristics of the process of growth. Nothing is ever included in his mature painting that he has not made genuinely his own, and nothing, once assimilated is lost."

The inventor saw a natural evolutionary growth in Renoir's work that reached it's 'apotheosis' in his later works. Hence his passion for collecting them.

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Fish Flying all over Rte 95 at Westport Last Monday Evening

I was driving south on the 95 last Monday at about 5:30 PM. I had just entered at Exit 17 and the traffic was at a near standstill.

About a quarter of mile from the entrance, a truck had overturned dumping several thousand live fish onto the roadway. As I inched by the scene, I could see hundreds of small fish jumping up and down.

What a sad sight to behold, all those innocent fish.

I later learned that all the fish were confiscated by authorities and the driver was unhurt

Ulysses Grant Updated: Stamford CT Welcomes Its 18th President

My blog on President Grant's coming to Stamford in the 1880's to write his memoirs elicited two responses. Both questioned the accuracy of some of my statements.

One respondent is writing a biography of his great grandfather Fernando Ward and the other is a trustee of the Grant cottage at Mt. Macgregor in upstate New York where Grant spent the last waning weeks of his life feverishly completing his memoirs.

As you may recall, I photographed a plaque that is at the entrance to the Holbrook Estates area of our city which reads in part that the General "visited and began writing his memoirs" on this site between 1881-1884.

I met with the person behind the erection of this monument and read her beautiful Grant portfolio of newspaper stories and Grant memoribilia and could find no explicit source to back up this claim.

So is the story apocryphal?

The best I can say is that no one disputes the fact that Grant visited Ward on his estate during the time of Grant's investing money with the former.

There is no documention, however, concerning Grant's actually writing his memoirs in Stamford. Perhaps, he was thinking about his memoirs and perhaps Ward suggested he write them to generate much needed funds.

I apologize for any confusion and misunderstanding my blog may have caused and I am thankful to the two respondents to my blog to help set the story straight.

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