I Can't Find My Car

     Park your car at the side of the road, not in the middle of the road, because then traffic can't get by.  I learned this while in Rome, where people are short of parking space.

     Herbie Planet (real name Herb Graham) was my art professor at college.  He did postcard art.  I like postcard art because it's cheap, almost everyone can afford it and you can mail it to your friends.  Herbie Planet used to walk around campus wearing an anti-radiation suit and handing out pamphlets for peace.

     J. S. Bach used to compose music with his twenty children playing around him.  I must admit I am having difficulty singing with even two of my children playing around me.  He must have had nerves of steel.  The nice thing about doing music with one's children around one is that they become musical too.

Signora Svizzera's Fashion Statements by J.M. Okano

Or

Canine Friendly Part Three

     Signora Svizzera was Signor Svizzera's wife.  He met her at the theatre.  She was an actress.  

     She used to be a very shy little girl.  To help her come alive as it were, her mother put her in acting classes.

     People joked about her ability with money and it was true, she did make mistakes.  For instance, she was very poor so she spent part of the rent money on food.  When it came time to pay the rent, she didn't have enough, so she spent part of the telephone money on rent.  When it came time to pay the telephone bill...you get the picture.  It was a recession and you know what that's like, children!

       However, Signora Svizzera got a part in a play so she decided it was time to spend her newly earned money on a Fashion Statement.  So she dyed her hair blond and bought some new, rather odd-looking shoes.  Ooh, they hurt.  She stumbled along, one foot half off the shoe's sole, her back aching from the strain,  a chiropracter's nightmare.  She was broke and uncomfortable.  This isn't worth it, she thought, and saved up some money and bought some sensible shoes.  They felt much better.  She threw the painful, odd-looking Fashion Statement shoes in the garbage can.

     She went home and told the story to her husband.  When he was her blond hair (he could see colours, he just couldn't see details) he gasped:

     "But your natural colour is such a lovely colour.  You didn't need to dye it!"

     She learned her lesson and didn't try so hard in the future to be the centre of the universe so far as fashion went!

THE END

Canine Friendly And Signor Svizzera And The New Hat By J. M. Okano

     Otherwise Known As

       Canine Friendly Part Two

     Dedicated To Liz Morris, my cousin

     Once upon a time there was a dog named Canine Friendly, whom you may have met in these stories once before.  He lived in Venice, and at the time of this story was a guide dog for the blind.  His master was a kind young man named Signor Svizzera who was a journalist and recorded reviews of plays he'd attended for the newspaper.  

     Signor Svizzera was helped a great deal by Canine Friendly who kept him from falling into canals or walking into walls, since Signor Svizzera was a blind man.  Signor Svizzera was in turn very kind to Canine Friendly and took good care of him.

     Signor Svizzera had a birthday and Canine Friendly wanted to give him a present.  Signor Svizzera danced when he got out of bed that morning because if there was one thing he liked, it was birthdays.  He gave Canine Friendly his breakfast, which the dog happily ate.  They went for a stroll in the sunshine on the Piazza.

     "Here's a hat shop!" thought Canine Friendly, looking at the hats in the window.  "Let's go in!"

     He led Signor Svizzera into the shop and he and his master sat down while the owner showed them all kinds of hats.  Because Signor Svizzera couldn't see them, he held the hats in his hands and felt them while the owner of the store described the colour of them to him.  He tried some of them on, and finally decided on  a Tyrolean one, made of green felt with a feather sticking out of the band.

     "I'll take that one, please," he said to the owner cheerily.

     Canine Friendly obviously couldn't pay for it, being a dog (and dogs don't have money, you know) so Signor Svizzera took out his wallet and paid for his own present, said thank you to the owner of the shop and to the dog and took the hat home.  Well, he did look quite stunning.  

     But that's not the end of the story!  The two of them were going out that day to buy a sandwich, made of mozzarella cheese, mortadella ham and a kaiser bun (I know that, because I've eaten it there) at the market when just after lunch, a gust of wind blew Signor Svizzera's hat clean off.  Alas, it fell into a canal and got quite wet until Canine Friendly left his master standing at the side of the canal, jumped in and saved the dripping hat.  Unfortunately, the hat no longer held its shape, but they took it back to the hat shop.  There the owner reshaped it for them.  Finally, Signor Svizzera took his reshaped hat and put it on again.  And after that, whenever a gust of wind came whistling down the street, he held it firmly in place.  He didn't want it to fall in the canal again.                                                                                   

THE END.

Salvador Dali, Okano Puppets In Switzerland, Milly-Molly-Mandy books

                                                                                

     Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dali was one of my favourite artists when I was younger.  Salvador Dali created dream-like images. He lived in Spain and Italy and had a wife named Gala.
     
     Isn't it fun to make some puppets?  Here is another of my puppet videos, this one is entitled Okano Puppets In Switzerland.  Hope you like it.

                                                                                        
      A popular book series in England are the Milly-Molly-Mandy books.  They feature three friends, Milly-Molly-Mandy, Little-Friend-Susan and Billy Blunt and their delightful adventures.  The series is by author Joyce Lankester Brisley and was published between 1928-2001.  Hope you enjoy reading the books.

     

Betsy-Tacy, Puppet Alphabet

 

                                                                                   
                                                                                   
     Here is another of my puppet videos, a Puppet Alphabet.  Hope you enjoy it.

     When I was a child I generally read children's books.  When I grew up, I tried reading grown-up books but after a couple of years I switched back to reading children's books again.  One I loved was an oldie but a goodie, Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace about some friends in Minnesota.  There's a whole series of books that follow.

I'm Looking For A Husband

     I'm looking for a husband.

Songwords Of Birds And Planes, Trulli and The Bible

     Coming soon to the black beret blog is a video of me reading my children's story entitled Songwords Of Birds And Planes.  It should be up in a few days!

     From time to time, my Dad comes up with new words to add to my vocabulary.  One of his latest is a word from the world of  Italian architecture:  singular trullo, plural trulli.

     The Bible is a good book to read.  And here is a video, by me, about a man who put his Bible away for a long time.  It's a puppet show.

                                                                                    
     Have a lovely day!