After years of negotiations, Christo’s dream is about to come true.
The packaging of the Arc de Triomphe dreamed of by the artist Christo and his wife Jeanne Claude. The work will be completed this Saturday, September 18, 2021.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude left their mark on the art world with their giant installations.
Their idea: to cover the greatest monuments in the world. In 1972, they packed an American canyon, in 1995, it was the turn of the Reichstag, the German parliament, to be completely covered and in 1985, they packed the Pont Neuf in Paris.
But for all these years, Christo has had another project: to cover the Arc de Triomphe on the famous Place de l’Étoile in Paris. Since the 1960s, the Bulgarian artist has not ceased to propose his project to the various French presidents, without success. He had to wait for the arrival of Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace to finally obtain permission to cover one of the most famous monuments in Paris.
A misfortune never comes alone, a succession of galleys then further postponed the project: the fire of Notre-Dame, the same day of his meeting with the Head of State or, of course, the Covid. Christo died in May 2020 and will never see his last big project see the light of day….that’s a wrap.MY NOTES:
CHRISTO has been one of my favorite artists. It was in 1991 that I had a chance to view
one of his famous exhibits…THE YELLOW UMBRELLAS in Southern California. What a treat
that was. My sister, Mary and I wandered thru the hills to view the umbrellas up close.
That experience was memorable. I started following his works of art with the Running Fence
in Northern California, after seeing photos of that exhibit, I was hooked.
The most lyrical and spectacular of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s epic projects was the installation of the Running Fence, a white-fabric and steel-pole fence, twenty-four- and-a-half miles long and eighteen feet high, across the properties of rural landowners in Sonoma and Marin counties north of San Francisco. ( 1976 )
So, I’m pleased to announce that my son, Jamie, his wife, Karen and their daughter,
my granddaughter, Sahara, are making the trek to Paris next week to celebrate CHRISTO’S
Jasper, America’s dog, died at 12:40 p.m. on Saturday, September 4, 2021. He was nine years old. Though I’ve cried and felt the rolling waves of the first stage of grief for the first two days without him, I don’t think it really hit me until 3:08 a.m. on September 6th.
I woke up because it was too quiet. Even when Jasper was sound asleep, he had a presence. I tried going back to sleep – I prayed, breathed, and begged for a bit more rest. It wasn’t happening. Finally, trying not to wake Peter, I decided to just get up and write it all down.
When I came downstairs, I could feel Jasper everywhere. This was his house. We were just living in it.
I grabbed my laptop and swallowed a couple of bites of Greek yogurt to coat my stomach before having a cup of English Breakfast Tea. I went to set the bowl down for Jasper to find when he woke up. I liked to leave him a little surprise. I caught myself before the bowl hit the floor and placed it in the kitchen sink instead.
I couldn’t decide where to sit to write, because each spot was also his. Jasper sat wherever we sat. It didn’t matter how small the chair, he would find a way to squeeze in there. Then he’d just sit and look around, as if he were a person helping you read the newspaper or have a chat with visitors on a Sunday afternoon. He would fight sleep. If he started to nod off, he’d wake with a start and then pretend he wasn’t falling asleep. He had a terrible fear of missing out.
And now I miss everything.
I avoided the family room where Jasper’s toy box is overflowing. He loved his toys and always needed to greet you with one or more. “Get another one, Jasper,” and he’d stuff one more in his mouth. I think the record was five toys that he somehow figured out how to get in his overstretched jaws. A fish fin, an elephant’s trunk, a teddy bear’s leg hanging out of the sides. I will miss those greetings. Especially the ones when I’d only been away for 30 seconds putting the trash down the chute.
I kept thinking ahead to the days to come that won’t include his greetings or his walks with Peter after work to pick me up after work at Fox News. He won’t jump up on the bed after his last outing to get some lotion on the tops of his paws (a tradition we started to get him to stop trying to lick it off my legs.)
Jasper will never be on “The Five” or “America’s Newsroom” again – he was such a great sport when we’d have him on set. He always wore a tie for television. He had a good sense of the cameras, having been over-photographed his entire life. Jasper would look right into the lens, as if he could start reading, “One More Thing is up next.” Oh, if I could just have one more thing with him.
In the days since Jasper passed away, we’ve been buoyed by the outpouring of support from our friends, colleagues, and especially our fans. Jasper was first on “The Five” in June 2012, a tiny puppy that I could easily hold in my arms. I think he slept through that first appearance, but a star was born.
I couldn’t help bringing up Jasper and his antics on air. Greg Gutfeld loved to tease me about it, which made me do it more. He even came up with a fake dog of his named Casper. No one knows what happened to Casper. Somebody check Greg’s basement, please.
I would post photos of Jasper and all his antics and adventures. People got a kick out of his “lil’ ear” – half of his left ear was missing – perhaps bitten off by a sibling when they were fighting for room in the womb. It gave him real character.
A viewer of “The Five,” FiveFanPhotoshops (now a good friend and my illustrator for Let Me Tell You About Jasper), created incredible pictures of Jasper in all sorts of places – the U.S. Open, the World Cup, presidential debates, and even space.
They were remarkable, made people laugh, and even fooled people “Is that real?”
His following grew. Soon, people were asking about Jasper more often than about politics. And that suited me just fine.
TSA agents would ask if I’d packed Jasper in the suitcase. Police officers would ask me, “How’s Jasper today?” Fans visiting New York City would be on the lookout for him as well. Once, a jogger in Central Park stopped us.
“Oh wow, is that Jasper?” Yes. Would he like a photo? Absolutely.
So, I asked Peter to take the picture with the man’s camera, and went to get in the shot.
“Oh….um, just Jasper.”
Oh. Yes, of course. My star was happily eclipsed.
This weekend we heard from a woman who was visiting Manhattan last winter with her sister. She made her get up early and dragged her to a certain spot in the park at 7:15 a.m. where she hoped to catch a glimpse of Jasper. To their delight, there he was with Peter, looking for fish in the pond. She got pictures with the dog she knew through social media and Fox News. She contacted us this weekend to send her condolences and said that meeting Jasper was the highlight of her trip.
I’ve heard from friends and strangers who said they’d never been dog people until Jasper. Some became dog owners because they wanted to experience that special bond as well. Others had just followed him because he was nicknamed America’s Dog on “Red Eye” (that was the show before Gutfeld Exclamation Point)– not because we thought he was better than any other dog, but because I said I’d be happy to share Jasper with everyone. I’d do all the work, and they could claim him as one of their own.
When the pandemic shutdowns started in March 2020, I added a Facebook Live reading for kids every afternoon for 15 minutes. I didn’t plan on having Jasper be a part of them, but he insisted on sitting next to me. He’d look at the camera or at the book’s illustrations, and the kids (and the parents and grandparents watching alone) loved it. I got a note from one of those parents this weekend – their kids still remembered Jasper’s readings and considered him their dog, too.
At Fox News, everyone knew of Jasper – and even though he didn’t come to work with me, his presence was felt there as well. The producers of “The Five” knew him his entire life and have indulged me with his appearances. Jasper gave us a lot of material to work with.
Staff throughout the building would ask about him, and they’d post his funny photos and videos to the website. One of the best was when Peter and Jasper rode a Harley and sidecar in a Fourth of July parade in Batman and Robin costumes, Jasper wearing his Doggles (no eye protection, no ride – Jasper knew the rules and never tried to take them off). We won “Best Dog” that year at the parade. America strong indeed. I was so proud.
I remember when Sean Hannity, Stuart Varney, and I had a “best dog” contest – it went to a vote by the viewers. Sean won, hands down. It was only fair – it was his show and his dog was very cute. But we were all winners. We had dogs.
Lawrence Jones came to visit one weekend. Jasper had never met him, but somehow knew Lawrence was the one to run to when he got off the train. Jasper never left his side the entire weekend.
Jasper was the first dog Lawrence ever really liked. That was his little buddy, and Lawrence was one of the first people I thought of as Jasper was dying. I knew he would be upset. His tribute to Jasper on “Fox & Friends” was so touching.
We have several good friends who we met through Jasper. He’d play with a dog at the park in Manhattan, greet another dog at a crab cake social in South Carolina, or chase a toy into the surf at the Jersey Shore with a new pal, and then Peter and I would have more friends with the dogs’ owners. Sometimes we only knew the dogs’ names – “You know, Scout’s mom…” and other times we would find ourselves invited to dinner at their homes for holiday meals. We were richer in friends because of Jasper.
Over the nine years of his life, Jasper’s love spread far and wide. And like a pebble tossed into Twilight Lake in New Jersey, his favorite fishing spot, it keeps rippling.
A good friend said this weekend that Jasper is probably still signing autographs in Heaven. That made me smile.
Another reminded us this weekend that grief is the price we pay for love. That made me cry.
Loving Jasper was worth every penny and then some. Dagen McDowell of Fox Business would call that an excellent return on investment.
There wasn’t a day he didn’t make us laugh out loud, melt my heart, or smooth my rough edges.
As I finish this, the sun isn’t even up yet. I almost prefer sitting in the dark for a bit longer. Alone here in the quiet and in his presence. I miss him so much. I’m not sure how I’ll be without him. But I know I’m better for having known him and to have held him as we said goodbye.
Thank you all for loving Jasper and sharing him with us.
Eileen’s high school in Sunderland celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, in 1934,
with gatherings and dinners both on the school grounds and in London.
In advance, looking ahead to the school’s one-hundredth anniversary,
she wrote a poem which she titled “End of the Century, 1984,”
and it was published in the Sunderland High School magazine, in 1934,
the year before she met Orwell.
Also known as Eileen O’Shaughnessy, her maiden name,
and as Eileen Blair, she was married to George Orwell
who’s real name was
Eric Arthur Blair.
Eric Blair married Eileen O’Shaugnessy , on 9 June 1936, at St Mary’s Church,
Wallington, Hertfordshire. (England)
Her poem: END OF THE CENTURY, 1984
Death Synthetic winds have blown away
Material dust, but this one room
Rebukes the constant violet ray
And dustless sheds a dusty doom.
Wrecked on the outmoded past
Lie North and Hillard, Virgil, Horace,
Shakespeare’s bones are quiet at last.
Dead as Yeats or William Morris.
Have not the inmates earned their rest?
A hundred circles traversed they
Complaining of the classic quest
And, each inevitable day,
Illogically trying to place
A ball within an empty space.
Birth Every loss is now a gain
For every chance must follow reason.
A crystal palace meets the rain
That falls at its appointed season.
No book disturbs the lucid line
For sun-bronzed scholars tune their thought
To Telepathic Station 9
From which they know just what they ought:
The useful sciences; the arts
Of telesalesmanship and Spanish
As registered in Western parts;
Mental cremation that shall banish
Relics, philosophies and colds—
Mañana-minded ten-year-olds.
The Phoenix Worlds have died that they may live,
May plume again their fairest feathers
And in their clearest songs may give
Welcome to all spontaneous weathers.
Bacon’s colleague is called Einstein,
Huxley shares Platonic food,
Violet rays are only sunshine
Christened in the modern mood.
In this house if in no other
Past and future may agree,
Each herself, but each the other
In a curious harmony,
Finding both a proper place
In the silken gown’s embrace.
As Eileen wrote this poem, in 1934, she was engulfed by news of the growing horrors of governments close by, those led by Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. She feared that the world of scholarship and cultural life that she so loved—represented by some interesting choices of writers in the poem—was being destroyed by the designs of men she abhorred.
Some say that Eileen was a woman who shaped, supported and even saved the life of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers, GEORGE ORWEL. Some scholars believe that Eileen had a large influence on Orwell’s writing. It is suggested that Orwell’s novel, 1984, may have been influenced by one of Eileen’s poems, End of the Century, 1984.
Although the poem was written a year before she met Blair, there are some similarities between the futuristic vision of Eileen’s poem and that in Nineteen Eighty-Four, including the use of mind control, and the eradication of personalfreedom by a police state.
So, you can decide if Eileen Orwell’s poem influenced the writing of 1984.
sagasandstoriesat821lane 