WilliamM

No. But, there were many trees on our property, often almost bending over by the winds from several hurricanes when I was a child in southern New England.

POLITICALLY INCORRECT Bill Maher Wrote a Bad Blog About Stan Lee “I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important,” said Maher. by KERENSA CADENAS NOVEMBER 17, 2018 1:11 PM By Phillip Faraone/Getty Images Like many celebrities and laypeople, Bill Maher took a moment this week to reflect on the life and legacy of Marvel comics mastermind Stan Lee—who died Monday at the age of 95. But unlike the bulk of those tributes, what Maher wrote wasn’t particularly complimentary. The late-night personality composed a dismissive blog post about Lee, the beloved co-creator of comic book characters including Spider-Man and the X-Men. Maher took offense at the huge outpouring of mourning over Lee, chiding grown-ups for celebrating the man: “I have nothing against comic books – I read them now and then when I was a kid and I was all out of Hardy Boys,” he wrote. “But the assumption everyone had back then, both the adults and the kids, was that comics were for kids, and when you grew up you moved on to big-boy books without the pictures.” Maher went on to blame comic books for the dumbing-down of American culture, concluding that they’re somehow responsible for the election of Donald Trump: “I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important.” Maher failed to acknowledge the good work Lee did, including his advocacy for diverse characters in fiction and founding a foundation to expand access to literary resources.

My guess: Hockney has has been discussed often on The CBS Sunday Morning Show.

Hockey and hi favorite model, Peter Schlesinger.

Shop My Account News Culture Desk David Hockney’s Ninety-Million-Dollar Painting: A Masterpiece Becomes a Trophy By Andrea K. Scott The New Yorker 10:00 A.M. Forty-six years ago, David Hockney’s “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” sold at the Andre Emmerich gallery, in New York, for eighteen thousand dollars. Photograph by Anthony Wallace / AFP / Getty David Hockney is the world’s most expensive living artist as of Thursday night, when “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures),” his big, color-soaked picture from 1972, sold at Christie’s New York for $90.3 million. It’s a dubious distinction, given that the eighty-one-year-old British painter won’t see a cent of the proceeds. In the U.S., artists aren’t entitled to royaltieswhen a piece changes hands; they profit only the first time their work sells. The Hockney record topples Jeff Koons, whose balloon dogs sold, also at Christie’s, for a measly $58.4 million, in 2013. The painter, never press-shy, has issued no comment on the astronomical payout. (The identity of the buyer, as ever at auction, remains unknown.) Last week, at an event in his honor in London, Hockney did share his thoughts on the pre-auction hoopla with Reuters, saying, “I ignore it.” Still, it’s bound to feel good—vindicating, even—for the L.A.-based painter, whose exuberant figuration was, until recently, considered the visual equivalent of easy-listening music by the art-world intelligentsia. Even more gratifying than the interest of an anonymous billionaire, probably, were the half-million people who turned out to see the painting in Hockney’s retrospective at the Tate Britain last year. (The artist was a record-smasher there, too, bested only by Henri Matisse in the annals of the museum’s attendance.) But too often these days, when we talk about art, we talk about money. To cite just one example, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s name is now synonymous with the phrase “more than a hundred and ten million dollars.” “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” deserves the overused label “masterpiece,” but it’s not a better picture today than it was forty-six years ago, when it sold at the Andre Emmerich gallery, in New York, for eighteen thousand dollars. Trophies and masterpieces aren’t the same thing, as anyone who has seen Leonardo da Vinci’s half-billion-dollar “Salvator Mundi” can attest. Reminiscing recently about his attraction to the subject of pools—he painted about twelve, then moved on—Hockney said, “You can look at the surface of the water or you could look through it.” The market is a shallows, reflecting art as an unregulated and increasingly obscenely priced financial instrument; the real value of a great painting has an unquantifiable depth. I just hope that Hockney’s beautiful picture is bound for a wall and not a crate in a freeport.

I had a similar experience long ago when the extremely attractive office janitor asked me if I wanted to play tennis. I feel in love after the first set. Not based on any financial arrangements, we had occasionally talked about tennis, but I over 10 years older. We did talk about attending the U.S., but he could not afford it.

@easygoingpal I will find the name of the film this weekend.

Yes, Maxwell Caulfield played Sloan in an earlier production. I saw the play after he left, his replacement mostly kept his clothes on.