Minneapolis is, right now, the front line of the entire country’s resistance to our fascist government and its agents. Those freezing January streets filled with people and the sounds of whistles and flash-bangs … the thousands of smartphone recordings that have been made and the thousands to come that reveal ICE’s now-naked war on America. There can be no doubt about it after the events of this past week. If you don’t see it, you never will … not until it is your door that ICE is knocking down.
Minneapolis is my old home town, where I spent the first thirty years of my life. I know those streets, recognize those addresses, have walked in areas now lit by police floodlights. Renee Good was shot and killed six blocks from my childhood home. I will never not be a Minnesotan, at least in part. This morning I can’t shake the ridiculous idea that I should be there. That I belong on that line. What is ridiculous is that I would probably be a liability to the those involved in the struggle. Someone that needed tending rather than someone who was good at carrying torches or blowing whistles.
Maybe not. Maybe I could be of some help, but no matter. The line will come to Colorado one day, who knows … perhaps even politically red Montrose will see its share of conflict because the Cluck machine is neither blue nor red. It is out only for itself, serving its masters both visible and hidden. I don’t have to travel across the country to mount the barricades … that opportunity will come to me.
My grandmother would have said: “Bloom where you’re planted.” Good advice, that. I will do my blooming right here.
******
Our streets come alive
Injustice quickening cold
Fury in our souls
******
******
How about something sweet and temperate? One of the best voices of this or any other time. Eva Cassidy singing Autumn Leaves and making it hers.
******
Our local recreation center has been so successful in recruiting members that it is becoming more and more frustrating to try to use its equipment. So far Robin and I have been unable to find some sweet spot in the day when the crowd is thinner and the machines we use in our respective programs are free.
Being able to move smoothly between devices is an important thing for my own training regimen, since at the slightest delay I am prone to simply leaving the building and returning home. Home being any place that doesn’t require physical effort and bulging neck veins.
The perfect venue for me, therefore, would be a large hall completely furnished with the latest and most scientifically studied equipment, with small loveseats sprinkled here and there to rest between exercises … and no one else allowed to be present when I was working out. Bank presidents, governors, and one percenters of all stripes would be shown the door as soon as I appeared.
I know, I know, there are some obvious hurdles to be overcome, but why not dream?
******
Another tune from Eva Cassidy, submitted by daughter Kari. Sublime. Cassidy died in 1996 of melanoma, at the age of 33 years. Such has been the respect for and appreciation of her gifts that there have been nine posthumous albums released. Nine.
One of those albums was with the London Symphony Orchestra. A cut from the album was this version of Time After Time.
The story of Eva Cassidy and the London Symphony Orchestra is a posthumous collaboration, bringing her acclaimed voice to a wider audience through the 2023 album I Can Only Be Me, where the LSO performed new orchestral arrangements for her classic recordings, fulfilling a dream she never lived to see due to her early death from cancer in 1996, with technology allowing her isolated vocals to blend with the full orchestra.
Google AI search
******
Every once in while I see a film that reminds me why we need filmmakers and darkened theaters to tell some stories. Tales so well told that you know you are a different person when you leave the theater than when you came in. You can feel it. Yesterday Robin and I took in such a performance, when we went to see Hamnet.
It was a tale of love and grief and their inseparability. Wrenching. Soulful. Beautiful.
Wore us right out. To the point where we needed ice cream right away.
******
There are many emotions that today’s troubles bring up for me, and I recognize grief among them. There is such a deep sense of loss when I read the headlines, see the videos, hear the spoken cruelties. No matter that this convulsion will be over one day, with the skies cleared and some sanity restored to public life.
I have lost a certain naïveté. Once I realized the sheer numbers of my countrymen who can allow and even support horrors to be visited upon their fellow citizens as long as it doesn’t touch them personally. Who believe that the killings and torturings and imprisonments and the orphans and the lost children are likely deserved punishments. No matter that my ‘innocence’ has been clearly shown to have been always a fantasy, no matter that I now work every day with people who share my convictions, a loss is still a loss.
Music, as always, can be a balm for the wounded spirit. Here’s a bit of that.
******
Little Home In The Valley 
I hope you don’t lose all that innocence, Jono. I’m certain that the number of Americans who think the whole mess is appalling far outnumber those who don’t.
LikeLike