Category Archives: Music

Christianity, Flowers, Holidays, Mom, Music

Jesus It’s Me Again

January 6, 2022 Christopher D. Bennett

It is time for another collection of flower pictures I took in my Mom’s yard. There are only a few of them this time.
These pictures were taken on August 16, 2021:

My Mom’s house is set to go on the market tomorrow. It is a bittersweet moment, but it is definitely past time that the house becomes a home to a new person or peoples.

Today is Epiphany. And while I haven’t mentioned many holidays recently, Epiphany is the day that I have my Christmas decorations up. Although this Christmas season that consists of decoration a Nativity set in the yard and an outdoor tree that I put lights and decorations I didn’t care if they broke on. Epiphany, if you don’t know, is the celebration of the Magi visiting Jesus as a child. Strictly speaking, it was probably years after Jesus was born. Not the day he was born.

In Eastern Christianity, Epiphany celebrates the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.

Regardless of how and why Epiphany is celebrated, I thought today’s title was apropos. I don’t know that anybody has figured out where the names for these Thursday posts come from, but they are song titles. Since today celebrates the divinity of Jesus I thought I would share the song lyrics:

Lately Lord, I almost feel like dying
I wake-up like a child alone at night
Sometimes Lord, I just can’t keep from crying
And I can’t find the strength to carry on
Jesus it’s me again
Down on my knees again
Asking you please again
Reach out your hand
Jesus it’s me again
I am on my knees again
Asking you please again
Reach out your hand
Jesus it’s me again
I’m down on my knees
And I’m asking
To reach out your hand
Time to time I try to find a reason
To talk to you a time to before
But this time Lord, it’s more than I can handle
And I know I just can’t take it anymore
Jesus it’s me again
Down on my knees again
Asking you please again
Reach out your hand
Jesus it’s me again
I’m on my knees again
Asking you please again
Reach out your hand
Yes asking you please again
Reach out your hand

The song, while depressing on the surface, is a reminder to me that wherever you are, that is where God will meet you. And how many times should you forgive? Seventy times seven. Which doesn’t mean 490. It means infinite. Infinite forgiveness!

Art, Flowers, History, Jesse, Lensbaby, Movies, Music, Road Trip

Cerro Gordo and Worth County Auxiliary Images Vol. 1

November 24, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

A few weeks back Jesse and I traveled up north to harvest the town signs of Cerro Gordo and Worth County. This trip included a stop at the Music Man Square in Mason City. Music Man Square is devoted to the history of famous composer. Wilson is most famous for writing the Iowa State pregame song “For I, For S”. Some people recognize the name because he wrote THE MUSIC MAN too. I think there is some little ditty you hear coming out of Iowa City now and again that he also wrote. A song that is based on another one of his hits, “It’s Begging to Look a Lot Like Christmas”. But he is definitely best known for “For I, For S”.

Here is the first collection of pictures from the road trip:

Rockwell

Mason City

The starts the T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool!

If you think I was watching the inferior but still great Matthew Broderick version of THE MUSIC MAN that you can watch for free on YouTube while I was writing this post, well you would be right! One of the greatest musicals ever.

Aaron, Andy, Football, Music

Boone 58 Perry 0

October 22, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett 1 Comment

Last Friday Andy asked me to come to the Boone football game to get a few pictures of Senior Night. Andy’s son Kyle is the QB on the team. Fellow email subscriber Aaron’s son Jayton is a WR on the team. At one point in the game Kyle threw a touchdown pass to Jayton and I sadly didn’t not get a picture of this epic Photography 139 connection.

Boone entered the game winless. So did Perry. But I had a good feeling that Boone would come out the victor on this night. It wasn’t even close. Boone turned a fumble recovery and a pick-six into a 13-0 lead a couple minutes into the game. Boone would go on to win 58-0. I feel bad for Perry. Coming into the game they have only scored 16 points the entire season. But I’m happy for the kids on the Boone team. After the rough season they’ve had it must feel really good to have a game where everything seems to go right.

Here are some pictures from the night:

I also got some pictures in there of some former Youth Group members like Hector and Tyler and Leah and Devin.

I don’t know if there is anything more Americana that a football Friday night in a small rural town. If there is, I don’t know what it is.

Boone finishes its season with Indianola tonight. Indianola is ranked and only has one loss this season. Sounds like they are due for another one!

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This is your reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is GREEN:

GREEN

GREEN! What a great theme! But what is a GREEN image? Simply enough, a GREEN image is any image where the color GREEN is an important part of the compositional elements. It can be the main subject, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. The word GREEN also has multiple meanings, if you want to explore that as well.

Happy photo harvesting!

Art, Brandon, Football, History, Iowa State, Music

College AmesDay

September 12, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

Here are some pictures from yesterday:

It was a disappointing effort by the Iowa State offense, but if they can right the ship, all their season goals are still on the table.

Football, Iowa State, Music

#7 Iowa State Cyclones 16 Northern Iowa Panthers 10

September 5, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

I did take my camera in for Iowa State’s embarrassing, pathetic performance/victory against UNI yesterday. There is a limit of 6 inches on the length of lenses that you are allowed to bring in, so the lens I brought in was definitely a wide angle lens, sorta. You don’t want to here the technical details on all of that. Therefore the pictures aren’t exactly in the action. But thought I would share them anyways.

Here are some of my favorites from yesterday:

If you haven’t read the Des Moines Register article on Nick Bassett, you really should.

Next Saturday Iowa State hosts Iowa. It is the biggest (maybe second biggest) game of the week in all of college football. ESPN is broadcasting College GameDay from Ames. It is only the second that GameDay has come to Ames, so it should be pretty exciting!

If you want to peruse the rest of the pictures from the game, click on the link below:

Iowa State Football – 2021

It is mostly band/cheerleader type pictures. It is hard for me to take pictures of the game when it is close and we are playing poorly. Both of those things happened on Saturday.

Black & White, Event, Formal Portrait, Jill, Music, Photoshop

2010-11-15 & 2010-11-18

August 28, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

There was really only one picture in the folder 2010-11-15, so I decided to include 2010-11-18 in this post. The picture in the folder 2010-11-15 is a picture of Jill holding her flute that I took for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE, back then known as the RANDOM WEEKLY PHOTO EXPERIMENT. The pictures in the folder 2010-11-18 are from the 2010 Philanthropy Day.

WEEK 45 - DIAGONAL RULE - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Philanthropy Day

RWPE #45 – DIAGONAL RULE

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve the Baiers.

Football, Iowa State, Music

2010-11-08

August 21, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

The pictures in the folder 2010-11-08 are from the last time that Iowa State and Nebraska played each other in football. Nebraska, tired of being mediocre in the Big 12 and being pushed around by Texas off the field, left for the Big Ten. Their fans thought for sure that they would soon dominate a conference with weaker competition and no long have to be bossed around by Texas. Instead, Nebraska has gone from mediocre to awful and now they are bossed around by Ohio State. While I enjoy watching Nebraska suffer, I do miss playing Nebraska. I also miss playing Missouri and Colorado to a lesser degree. However, I do not miss Texas A&M at all. That school is a cult and the SEC is welcome to keep that freakshow all to themselves.

I don’t know that we’ll get to see Iowa State and Nebraska play football any time soon. The only way that would happen now is in a bowl game. Iowa State is now a top ten football program and Nebraska is struggling to get out of the cellar of the Big Ten West, the weakest division in Power 5 football.

If Nebraska somehow managed to squeak into a bowl game, it would be some garbage bowl that was nobody has heard of. While Iowa State will be playing in one of the most prestigious bowls in all the land.

I think this game might have marked the beginning of the end of the Paul Rhoads era. Iowa State lost 31-30. Iowa State scored a touchdown late in the game that would have tied it. But rather than going for one, Iowa State ran a fake PAT and while the receiver was wide open in the endzone for for the 2 point conversion, Iowa State’s holder threw a terrible pass and Nebraska escaped with a win.

That errant pass would cost Iowa State a bowl game. And Iowa State never had a winning record on Paul Rhoads after his first season.

Although his firing would lead to the hiring of Matt “Bullshit Programs Care About 6-6” Campbell. The rest has been history.

Here are some pictures from the game:

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

End of an Era

RWPE #44 – HANDS

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve a flute, at the very least.

Art, Derrick, Evie, Football, Iowa State, Kalista, Music, Saydie, Taylan

2010-11-01

August 14, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

The majority of the pictures in the folder 2010-11-01 are from when the Iowa State Cyclones bested the Kansas Jayhawks on the gridiron. I believe that was like 7 Kansas football coaches ago. Back then there coach was a guy who used to coach at Buffalo. Their current coach is a guy who used to coach at Buffalo.

The last Kansas coach was fired because he “tried to sexualize the staff of student workers in the football program by, for instance, allegedly demanding that he wanted blondes with big breasts, and ‘pretty girls.’” So that’s fun.

There are also pictures of a few trick-or-treaters I got on Halloween in 2010:

WEEK 43 - SMOKE PHOTOGRAPHY - CHRISTOPHER D. BENNETT

By adding these pictures to the Photography 139 Gallery, I was able to restore the following historic “An Artist’s Notebook” entries to their original glory:

Cyclones vs. Jayhawks

RWE #43 – SMOKE PHOTOGRAPHY

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve more Iowa State football.

Andy, Bill, Boone County Fair, Carla, Cathie, Christianity, Elizabeth, History, Kim, Kio, Michelle, Music, Tamara, Teresa, Vest, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 305 – MUSIC

July 19, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett

While we have been working on sorting things at my Mom’s house, we recently have come through a whole pile of genealogy stuff. While sorting through it, I thought I would share a bit of family history from my Dad’s side of the family. It is a story I’ve known, but never knew all the details that well. Through a series of 6 newspaper clippings, I’m going to share the story of my Grandma Bennett’s brief second marriage.

Handschin-Kessler Wedding
Sunday, December 31st

After morning services at the Central Church of Christ Sunday, December 31st, a wedding ceremony was solemnized in which Mrs. Bernice Kessler, daughter of Mr. anad Mrs. O.M. Needham, 1517 Sixth street, became the bride of Mr. Maurice Handschin of Sioux City, Iowa. The Rev. G. Harvey Sutton officiated at the double ring ceremony in his study. Attending the couple were Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Spratt of Boone.

For her wedding, the bride wore an attractive dress of plaid sheer wool with black accessories.

Later in the day, a wedding supper was served at the Spratt Restaurant, seventeen being present for the event. Both the bride and bridegroom attended Boone High school and have many friends in Boone who will be interested in reading of their marriage. The bride is employed at the Rollins Hosiery Mill and Mr. Handschin is employed by Swift Packing company at Sioux City, where the couple will make their home.

The articles are printed on thermal paper, it appears, and are not in good shape. Here is what it looks like:

There will be more to the story tomorrow.

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The language of MUSIC seemed to speak to several people this week. Of course, that is MUSIC to my ears, or maybe MUSIC to my eyes.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Teresa Kahler

Kim Barker

Tamara Peterson

Shannon Bardole-Foley

Christopher D. Bennett

Bill Wentworth

Cathie Raley

Michelle Haupt

Andy Sharp

Elizabeth Nordeen

Carla Stensland

Kio Dettman

Mike Vest

But enough dwelling on the past. Time to look to the future. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future! This week’s theme:

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture! What a great theme for Year 8 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE.

But what is an ARCHITECTURE image? Simply put ARCHITECTURE photography is the photographing of structures. Buildings mostly, but there are other types of structures. Bridges. Towers. Bleachers. Try to capture a beautiful construction or parts of it in an interesting way.

Think on the following quote when you think about creating your ARCHITECTURE image:

Even a brick wants to be something.
-Louis Kahn

RULES

The picture has to be taken between 12:01 PM today and 11 AM next Monday. This isn’t a curate your photos project. This is a get your butt off the couch (unless you are taking your picture from the couch) and take pictures challenge.

You can send your images to either bennett@photography139.com OR you may text them to my Pixel 5.

That is all I got, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will all be sharing our idea of MUSIC in this place that is created by a computer architect next Monday.

Andy, Becky, Bill, Carla, Dad, History, Joe Duff, Kim, Michelle, Micky, Music, Tamara, Teresa, Vest, WPC - Submissions

WPC – WEEK 304 – HISTORY

July 12, 2021 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

Lots of people decided to make HISTORY by taking a HISTORY image this week. I understand that it can be a bit difficult for people that aren’t like me. You see, it is easy for me cause I’m making HISTORY every day.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates. You came to see the submissions:

Teresa Kahler

Joe Duff

Tamara Peterson

Becky Parmelee

Bill Wentworth

Christopher D. Bennett

Kim Barker

Andy Sharp

Michelle Haupt

Carla Stensland

Micky Augustin

Kio Dettman

Mike Vest

MUSIC

BY THE WAY: WEDNESDAY IS THE LAST CITY BAND CONCERT OF THE YEAR IN BOONE.

MUSIC! What a great theme for Year 8 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE!

But what is a MUSIC photo? A MUSIC photo is any picture that’s composition includes anything related to MUSIC. A person playing MUSIC. Sheet MUSIC. A MUSICal instrument. Anything involved in the creation of MUSIC.

While thinking on your MUSIC photo, consider this quote:

Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.
-John Erskine

Think on that quote, and you will no doubt create a stunning MUSIC image for next MONDAY.

RULES

You can send your images to either bennett@photography139.com OR you may text them to my Pixel 5.

That is all I got, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will all be sharing our idea of MUSIC in this place that like to think it is a metaphorical melody next Monday.