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Thank you for celebrating five years with me this week. It has been beautiful to contemplate the rewards of blogging, and of knowing you, my friends.
My gift of gratitude
With the help of List Randomizer, I tossed all your pretty avatars from the previous post comments into the bag and came up with a very pretty blogger avatar indeed! Margaret Bednar, I will be painting you a bluebird on a piece of wood (see previous post).This may be a little like sending coals to Newcastle, since you are an artist! Margaret lives in North Carolina, has six gorgeous children, and still has time to create art, write poetry and maintain two art blogs: Art Happens (Painting & Sketching) and Art Happens 365 (photography & poetry)! Margaret, thank you for making this little salon sparkle with your presence.
Speaking of salon. I’d like to ‘splain, since I use the term salon in my comment box. The word sounds either hoi polloi, or hoity toity in the U.S, where the only rooms we call salons are for hair stylists and nails, but we vaguely know about the European salons. To call my blog a salon either sounds like I’m about to give you a virtual shampoo-massage, or that I delude myself by thinking I am a European sophisticate like Mme. Geoffrin on rue St. Honoré. (See Lemonnier's painting of her salon at the right/above, and read a wonderful essay about the history of the European salonat the Oxford University Press sitehere.)
But the word salon is quite special to me, actually. Until we moved to Istanbul, I hadn’t heard the word used much, except in books located in Europe when friends gathered in them, or as in the art and literary salons in France and other places where artists like Rodin submitted their work (and were sometimes rejected, yes even Rodin). So when we moved to Istanbul in 1985, we learned that the “living room” was called the salon. We bought salon furniture and satin drapes with tulle sheers, in the rather elaborate fashion of Turks, for whom hospitality, and the attitude of welcome at the very least, is one of the most important values. The salon was the room where guests were entertained, and believe me, in Turkey guests are still entertained, or at least they were twenty-five years ago. Whether accompanied by çay and börek in the afternoon with the ladies of the apartment building crocheting and gossiping, or çay, dolma and pastries in the evening with couples or families, it was the center of conversation. We kept track of each other's lives. If we had been better at the language, it might have been something like the salons you read about in Henry James or Edith Wharton novels (well maybe not so fancy) where friends came in from the cold to engage in stimulating discourse. If someone had a particularly skillful touch with delicacies from the kitchen, combined with an ease of hospitality and a gift for encouraging people to talk, and if the çay kept pouring into those little glasses with saucers, then their salon was rarely empty any given week. Friends would travel through the heaviest downpours or ignore wedding invitations to sit and visit in such a salon. (See Michael Naples' beautiful painting, above, of the Turkish çay glass and saucer -- ours were just like that; the tea doesn't have a chance to get cold in those small glasses; when I found his image on Google, I thought it was a photograph; do explore his Daily Paintings.)
I have nothing in my life like a drawing room, parlor, living room, or front porch where guests come regularly to sit and visit together . . . except this salon where my blog friends come. We can cozy up by the wood stove here on the farm and chat, never stiff or formal like Mme. Geoffrin's, I hope (though like her, I receive an education by listening to my guests!), and some days I kinda want it to be more like a saloon! (Yes, same word, anglicized . . . or americanized.)
Western Saloon, by Lee Dubin
Or I'd like to invite you to a warm, festive supper, like this:
Julaftonen (Christmas Eve), by Carl Larsson
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However we drink our beverages here, coffee, tea, Christmas punch, or draft beer from the bar, I love having you come! Or in Turkish: Hoş geldiniz! ("We welcome you with pleasure!" Hoş is pronounced "hosh" -- long "o") Now you say: Hoş bulduk! ("We're happy to be here!")
- That was a fun little rip and rant, phew! Thank you to those who agreed to participate in my How I Named My Blog invitation.
After a couple days of sobriety, and some chillier November air, I've decided to keep on despising and shunning awards of any kind! If you'd like to tell the story of how you chose your blog name on December 1st, please do! But there will be NO MAJOR AWARD! You can leave a comment in this or the previous post if you'd like to participate, and I'll add you blog to the list. If you already told me you would, I've got you on my list for that day's post. If you want to withdraw now that the pulchritudinous award is just a pretty face on my last post, let me know, teehee.
(It is very hard to resist an exclamation point now, let me tell you. There, I left a big period. That feels a little better.)
I don't like "winners" and "losers" (I was rarely chosen to be on anyone's team) - but I am curious about some of those blog names out there. You can use me as an excuse: "Ruth asked, so I'm telling . . ."
I mean even a name like "Peter's Paris" - how did Swedish Peter come to live in Paris? - -
How did you name your blog? Was it a no brainer, easy as pie? Or was it obscure, esoteric and deep - only you could understand it? Did you choose from five stellar names - or struggle to think of one?? Do you ever regret your blog name? Wish you'd called it something like "The Daily Life of Cindy Jones" because you get tired of explaining what "Les écritures d'une nymphe des bois*" means incessantly? Or vice versa?? Inquiring minds want to know!!!! Namely, mine!!!!
Why not take a break from travel, food, music, book or movie reviews, photos of your grandchildren, your cat, your dog, the chickens, your garden, city, nature, politics, art and poetry and tell the fascinating story of how you came to choose your blog name?!!! Maybe your blog naming story IS about your cat or dog - all the better!!!! What hidden truths about yourself lie within that moniker? And is your profile name a pseudonym??? Completely different from your blog name?? How intriguing, how delightfully freeing to choose a name when you couldn't name yourself at birth!!! A blog is a wondrous playground!!!!
On December 1, publish your own "How I Named My Blog" (echoecho echo) post!!!! Participate with THOUSANDS - perhaps TENS of THOUSANDS - of Bloggers around the world in this first time ever highly anticipated truly GLOBAL event!!!!
But wait, there's MORE!!!! Like my dear friend Al Pacino, I despise and shun awards of any kind!!! But I am going to bestow a Major Blog Award to ONE blogger for "How I Named My Blog" (echoecho echo, and henceforth)!!!! What could be more thrilling?!!!
Did you choose a straightforward name of small proportions and your story will impress me with simplicity, subtlety, nuance and grace? Or will you take your ordinary name of "Nathan's New York" and unfold a titillating and seductive tale - fiction or non-fiction??? Ah - will you transform your blog naming narrative into poetic form - a haiku, a limerick or maybe an epic??? (God be pleased, NO EPICS.) Will you try to make me laugh? How well do you know me? That is the allure for this Major Blog Award - YOU CAN'T KNOW for sure!!!! Maybe I'll lay them all before the chickens and let them "peck" one!!!! I might just give the Major Blog Award to my BBF**!!!!! Or maybe I'll give it to myself - even though I despise and shun awards of any kind - since I myself will explain how I named synch-ro-ni-zing on December 1st!!!! There are no rules or criteria (except NO EPICS)!!!! All bloggers are welcome!!!! You don't even have to have a Blogger blog!!!! WordPress or any other weird site will do!!!! Will I choose the story with the most exclamation points???? The most words in BOLD???? The most embedded LINKS???? Who knows!!!!!!!!!
Just tell me in a comment at this post that you are going to participate in posting your very own story of "How I Named My Blog" on December 1st, give me the URL for the blog where you will post it, and I will list and link to your blog that day!!!!! Then I will read every last one of the posts posted by posting participants and choose a WINNER!!!! Mark your calendar!! (Did you notice that only two "!!" was such a letdown?!!!!) Don't miss out on this FIRST-EVER CHANCE to participate in this unique and major Major Blog Event!!!! Are you going to be away December 1st?? No worries!!!! You can schedule a post ahead of time!!!! Just click on "Post Options" at the bottom of your Compose box!!!! I will announce the WINNER in my first post after December 1st!!!! (If I get the THOUSANDS - PERHAPS TENS OF THOUSANDS - I expect, I'll see you sometime next year!!!!!)
If you get weak at the knees thinking of increased traffic at your site, participate!!!!!! If you get sweaty palms thinking about winning such a Major Blog Award and a traffic jam in front of your blog, or the drama of paparazzi camped out on one side of your lawn and protesters with placards on the other, consider long and hard, my friends!!!!! I am IRRESPONSIBLE!!!!! Any damages are not my problem!!!!
The lucky winner of this prestigious Major Blog Award will get to post on their own site the pulchritudinous award above of an elegant woman christening her blogship!!!!! Imagine how it will look on your site!!!! But don't worry, if you have always been like me and my good friend Al Pacino and despise and shun awards of any kind, and you WIN - post your story anyway, and just don't show up for the award, it's simple!!!!!! Even if you don't WIN the coveted Major Blog Award, you will have gotten that marvelous story down in the annals of blogdom and participated in this highly anticipated Major Blog Event!!!!
I know you are unused to this kind of hysterical buzz at such a serious and sober blog as mine!!! But I couldn't be more serious or sober - even if a little delirious and dervishy!!!! Don't delay, sign up TODAY!!!!!
Now sing along with my close friends Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews as Bert and Mary Poppins as they sing, "It's a bloggy holiday with you, Ruth!!!!!"
Sincerely, soberly and ecstatically yours - Ruth
*Les écritures d'une nymphe des bois =Writings of a Woodland Nymph
**BBF=Best Blog Friend - (You thought you'd find out who this is down here???)
Note: Emily Dickinson said a poet has license to use one exclamation point in their entire oeuvre. I'm sorry, but I have used all of yours and mine up for this global cause.
Note2: Again I apologize, this was written between 1 and 3 in the morning one night when I couldn't sleep. We can only pray it won't happen again, and this blog will return to its state of peace and tranquility.
It's time to put some flowers round the room! I was stunned to see that synch-ro-ni-zing got Blog of Note Friday. Thank you to Blogger, and to all you nice people for visiting. Have a warm, cozy weekend.
