Archives for November 2010

So, I’m all about spending time with the fam on Thanksgiving, but there comes a point where enough is just enough. I reached that point about a day into this years Thanksgiving madness.

I come from a pretty tight-knit family, so spending holidays together has always been something we do– and until now, I’ve really enjoyed it! Now that my cousins, aunts & uncles have kids of their own, I’m finding the holidays much more grating. Am I turning into that crotchety family member that hates kids?! Eek!

It’s not that I hate kids… I guess I just dislike this generations’ obsession with their cellphones, laptops, game consoles, farmville– well, the list goes on. Call me old school, but I like breaking out Pictionary and playing REAL games with the family.

I sadly discovered that my little cousins prefer texting their friends instead of spending quality time with everyone. Is it so wrong of me to expect a little interaction from the younger generation? “When I was their age”……we always played board games at the holidays– and shared so many laughs and made great memories doing it.

I guess there’s nothing I can do to change the inevitable, but I don’t have to like it!! As for me, I’ll still try to talk the family into playing a board game or two over the holidays :).

Every now and then you read about people who find something in an attic or closet that turns out to be very valuable. The hope that it can happen to you is the sole reason for the existence of Antiques Road Show. People long to hear one of their experts say something like “Why, yes, to the untrained eye, it does look like a ball of lint. But, in reality, it’s the remnants of Cleopatra’s first haircut. My guess is that it’s worth millions.”

And what’s not to cheer about something like that? Someone gets an honest windfall and no one’s suffered any harm.

Other times, someone famous gives you something that holds only sentimental value for you. Only later do you find out that they’ve given you a gold mine. Such was the case for Pablo Picasso’s barber, Eugenio Arias. Picasso used to doodle while he was getting his hair cut and then turn over the drawings to his barber.

While popular myth, and the linked obituary, have Sr. Arias donating the drawings to a museum, he was in fact compensated. Not for their true worth, but enough to put several grandchildren through college.

Again, no harm, no foul.

But every now and then that whole “gift story” doesn’t hold up very well. Pauline Mevel from Yahoo News reports about a guy who claims that Picasso, or Picasso’s wife, or some dude in an alley, gave him over 200 original paintings.

Pablo Picasso was both hugely prolific and famously generous with his work, but was he enough of a free spirit to give hundreds of his early works — an invaluable collection — to his electrician?

That question lies at the heart of a court case over the origin of 271 Picasso works — a treasure trove of original sketches, paintings and collages that was unknown to the art world a few months ago and unveiled for the public on Monday.

Experts have yet to appraise the full collection, which has been placed under lock and key after a judicial appeal by Picasso’s heirs. But there is little dispute so far over its authenticity. The works, many of which belong to the artist’s Blue and Cubist periods, could fetch more than 60 million euros ($79 million) at auction.

More mysterious is how such an extensive collection could have wound up in the hands of a retired electrician in the south of France who once worked for the Picasso family, or why he chose to hold onto it for so many decades.

“We have questions, legitimate questions about where the paintings came from,” Claudia Andrieu, legal counsel for the Picasso Foundation, told Reuters Television. “We are discovering new pieces, completely unknown pieces that had never been printed in any book.”

The mystery began when Claude Picasso — son of the artist and head of the foundation named after him — received a letter from a man who said he owned original Picasso pieces and wanted to have them verified for authenticity.

Picasso convinced the man to bring the collection to Paris, saying he would be unable to verify it from photographs. The man arrived by car with the paintings in a suitcase and laid them out on a table.

“I felt a great surprise, naturally, lots of emotion at the discovery of pieces with which we were not familiar. But also a deep disturbance,” he told French daily Liberation. “Many of these pieces were not dated, which means they never should have left the studio.”

The man in question was Pierre Le Guennec, an electrician in his seventies who worked on Picasso’s property in the south of France during the 1970s. He told Reuters Television that Picasso’s wife gave him the artworks.

“It’s Madame (Picasso) who gave them. But if Madame gave them, Monsieur was aware of it. She wasn’t going to do it just like that, was she?” he said, speaking through a gate in front of his property. “What did you want me to do with them? … They stayed in a box with other boxes that I have, from my job.”

Yet Picasso’s heirs were not convinced.

While the artist was known to dash out sketches on napkins at restaurants and make spontaneous gifts to friends, he would not have separated with such a large store of work, his son told Liberation. “It doesn’t hold up, frankly,” Picasso said.

Andrieu of the Picasso Foundation said that Le Guennec had changed his story many times, first telling them he had received the paintings from Picasso himself, then Picasso’s wife, and alternately in a box or a trash can.

Questioned by the police, he said the paintings were given to him by Picasso’s wife, who died in 1986. Le Guennec denied stealing the paintings and told RTL radio he decided to ask about their value as a possible inheritance for his children.

Unwilling to risk losing the works, Picasso’s heirs successfully appealed to a judge to have the works placed under lock and key, where experts can study and care for them.

Among the works are nine extremely rare Cubist collages, a watercolor from Picasso’s Blue period, several painted hand studies, some 30 lithographs and over 200 drawings, as well as portraits of the artist’s first wife, Olga Khokhlova.

“Mr. Picasso is only interested in the history of art,” Andrieu said. “We got the pieces secured, and now it is for the judge to determine how the pieces were obtained.”

If I’m the cops, the first thing I do is go and take a look and see what’s in the other boxes he claims he got “from work.” For all we know he could have everything from the Templar’s lost treasure to the Arc of the Covenant.

I’m not sure how all of this will play out. For all the legitimate suspicions the family has, it may be impossible to prove the works were stolen. In that case, Msr. Le Guennec would seem to be entitled to sell them.

One thing’s for certain, this electrician has clearly learned how to channel his inner Jon Lovitz.

In keeping with my, inadvertent, Christmas theme, I thought I’d take a minute to talk about some of the time honored traditions that make people feel good this time of year. While many folks are stunned when they find out that baby Jesus wasn’t born under a glowing pine tree and there’s not one single mention of the little drummer boy anywhere in the Gospels (neither synoptic nor gnostic), the stories still live on.

One tradition has become a staple of the holiday season; caroling. Or, to be more historically accurate, wassailing. Now, speaking as an Irish cliché, this is one tradition I understand. Like all well conceived ideas, this one was spawned by drunks with rocks. Nothing says “Happy Holidays!” to me more than the thought of staggering by people’s homes and demanding booze. Let the kids keep the watered down version of candy and costumes for Halloween, I’m sticking with the grown ups and threatening anyone who doesn’t fill my cup.

Monica Garske from AOL News takes a joyous look at the history of caroling.

Christmas caroling has long been a favorite tradition of church groups, elderly choirs and children, but did you know that the first groups of carolers were nothing but a bunch of rowdy drunks?

That’s the tune from David McKillop, senior vice president of programming for the History Channel, who recently talked to AOL News about the network’s upcoming holiday special, “The Real Story of Christmas,” premiering Nov. 29 at 9 p.m. ET.

The TV special examines the surprising historical origins of our most bizarre Christmas customs, including why some of us go door to door singing holiday songs to any strangers who will listen.

McKillop said the origin of caroling dates back to the pagan celebration of the winter solstice, when Christmas was regarded as a festival of pure joy and drunken revelry. Oh, and prayer was involved somewhere in there too.

According to McKillop, groups of poor medieval carolers would go around to houses singing and begging for food and drinks, threatening to throw rocks through the windows of anyone who refused to give them a handout.

They literally “went medieval” on people.

“They would get very, very rowdy. Eventually, the drunken revelry got too out of hand, and Christmas was banned for years in America in the 16th and 17th centuries,” explained McKillop.

Sheesh. Sounds like an episode of “Carolers Gone Wild.” If you don’t open your door to singing strangers this year, no one will blame you.

McKillop said those same ancient winter-solstice celebrations — which usually lasted 12 days — gave rise to the tradition of burning a yule log, often mentioned in classic Christmas songs.

“People would try to find the biggest log possible to burn in a fireplace, to keep the light and warmth going during the 12 days of the feast,” he said.

Another fun fact: Santa Claus wasn’t always so chummy and cheery. In fact, he was kind of a downer who ran with a bad crowd.

McKillop said the St. Nick of old European legend was said to be accompanied not by elves but by an impish little devil creature named “Krampus” who beat up and kidnapped naughty children.

“If kids were bad, Krampus would leave them bad gifts. I think that’s where the idea of giving people coal for Christmas first sprouted. That Krampus was mean,” said McKillop.

Garske and McKillop take a look at quite a few other traditions, so make sure to read the whole article.

So, this holiday season, when you’re hanging with a sexy, little, elf, drinking yourself into oblivion and trying to convince all who are unfortunate enough to listen that you’re really a tenor, just remember that you’re honoring a centuries old custom.

And if anyone doesn’t like it, throw a rock at them.

In this edition of Classic Nude Hippo, we go way back to the year 2002.  Nick Rosario & a few of the guys on NUDE HIPPO were all on the wrong path of gaining too much weight.  So they went to the NBC 5/Telemundo Healthy Living Expo to learn what they could do about this.   

Larry Wert, the top dog at NBC, help explain what he hoped to help with this epidemic.  However, everyone knows, the best solution to any problem is to just include television child star, Danny Bonaduce.

Nick also had his blood sugar level checked.   To explain what a normal level should be seems too complicated to get into here, but this diagram should help if you are really interested.

If you’re interested in finding out more about high blood sugar levels, click here!  Also be sure to check out NBCchicago.com and Jewel-Osco for more healthy living ideas!