When the news is merde piled upon merde what’s left to do but dance shaking off those flooding tears and dancing
Angel Dance, by Los Lobos
take your bad knees and your trick hips and put them through their paces dancing, forgetting nothing while body blows are dealt to flooring and rhythmic shoes and boots pound yesterday’s unvacuumed mirk into resolve
Mary Jane’s Last Dance, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
dance like fools, like motes in sunlight like lovers parting dance for those whose time is up their names pressed into ice and asphalt dance for the Renees that were and the Alex-es that are yet to come
Cosmic Dancer, by T. Rex
dance for kindness dance for hope dance for when you were a child at a party unbound, unaware, unafraid
When You Dance (I Can Really Love), by Neil Young
dance that good old Brownian motion that you do when no one’s looking dance for those who would but can’t
Dance Me To The End Of Love, by The Civil Wars
in the firelight in the moonlight in the floodlights
Dance the Night Away, by Van Halen
in the middle of a berserk world why, look at us, with tremors, rage and fear we’re dancing
Awright, here’s my opener for today. I have no idea who this woman is, where she is, and I could care less. She is one of the truth-tellers out here on the open range, and they are all over the place if you look for them. This is a saving grace of an otherwise gruesome time, the chance to meet people you admire and band together with them spiritually if not actually.
(sorry about the enormous size of this video, I can’t find a way to make it smaller.)
The ugliest among us are running the show today, but there is some serious reckoning coming, and I hope they all have a good retirement plan … they are going to need it. The man who killed Renee Good has become famous. I saw a video where his name was painted on the side of a van, along with details of his crime. I don’t know where he lives but many do, and his life has certainly changed since he pulled that trigger a few days ago.
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One of the pleasures of daily life here in Paradise has been the proliferation of murals on the bare sides of buildings on the Western Slope. I love it. In Montrose some enterprising artists have painted a bunch of new ones recently. No fanfare, just one day you look up and see something beautiful or interesting where there had been nothing. When it is warm again, I’m going to walk around town and photograph a few to share with you. Until then, here’s three examples.
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My coffee perfumes The kitchen at four a.m. Without being asked
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Our more typical and much colder weather this week has prompted some Canada geese who were thinking of setting up permanent homes here in our pleasant valley to get up and go. Large flocks were seen overhead yesterday, moving south.
I love the fact that most of the planet keeps to its ancient rhythms and movements while we humans seemingly cannot find our way. It’s not that there aren’t maps for us to follow, they are plentiful and available everywhere. What is our problem anyhow? Was it when we left the caves that things went sour?
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Both Robin and I are a little under the weather this week, with annoying coughs and just enough malaise to make us cranky. Since I was in my sixth day of this grayness and going about the house mewling about not feeling hungry and maybe we could just skip supper and all, Robin put on her big girl pants and went to the store for … chicken soup.
Two big 22 ounce cans of Campbell Chicken Noodle Soup appeared in the kitchen. I can’t remember the last time I had this particular food. Of course I make a decent chicken noodle soup myself, with fresh herbs and the whole show, but this stuff … a connection with the earliest food memories that I have.
Into the kettle went the can’s contents, along with an equal amount of water. That’s it. Apply some heat and you’re done. Campbell’s knew their people back in 1934 when they first put it on the shelves. Make it affordable, make it easy to cook, make it tasty. All of those things were in evidence last night.
One thing. There was almost a complete absence of chicken. From the bits I came upon here and there as I gobbled down my two bowlsful I would estimate that one could make at least three hundred gallons of soup from a single bird. (I am not complaining, just observing.) But no matter, this morning I already feel slightly better, and I look forward to finishing off the leftovers today.
[BTW, Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup was also introduced in 1934, without which Lutheran churches all over Minnesota may not have survived in those early post-depression days. The sheer number of church-basement casseroles using this soup as a base, along with some egg noodles and a little tuna fish … astronomic.]
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There are days when I Am no more than my anger In wintry discontent
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Robin and I rented and watched the movie Spartacus this week. Originally released in 1960, it was hugely successful at the box office, took hard shots at the right-wing witch-hunts that were in progress in our country at the time, and was a young Stanley Kubrick’s first big-budget film.
It was the only film directed by Kubrick where he did not have complete artistic control. Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted at the time as one of the Hollywood Ten. Douglas publicly announced that Trumbo was the screenwriter of Spartacus, and President John F. Kennedy crossed American Legion picket lines to view the film, helping to end blacklisting.
Wikipedia
Soooo … a politically astute film filmed by some of the best technicians in Hollywood with an amazing cast, one that won four Oscars and whose creation and showing were surrounded by important off-screen dramas. Not too shabby an origin story.
The only problem for Robin and I was its running time … 197 minutes. This substantially exceeded our attention spans, which typically clock in at around 120 minutes. Therefore we watched it over two successive nights.
The film also had one of the strangest last scenes I’ve ever watched. A combination of horror and inspirational in the frame at the same time. Odd indeed. One felt two wildly disparate emotions simultaneously.
Today I feel nostalgia for events that have not happened.
I do not know what the previous sentence fully means, but I wrote it down just as I heard it in my mind as I stood in my garage staring out through the open overhead door at dark skies and a rainstorm moving east toward Montrose.
Sometimes you wake in the morning and read what you’ve written and it is as novel to you as it will be to the next person to see it. Thoughts, insights, inspirations can arise in my own brain completely ex nihilo. I know that I could not have written them because they are conveying information that is news to me.
I’ve read that this is not uncommon among writers, and their interpretations are always interesting. Some claim that it is “the Muse.” Some say it is God whispering. Some just admit that they have no idea how it occurs which is mostly the case with me, but … hey … what if …
We know that as long as we live that our brains never go totally dark. They are always at work at mundane things like keeping us from falling out of bed. They are always aware of time and this explains why we wake up so often a minute before the alarm is scheduled to go off. But I have a strong suspicion that our brains also never forget, even though we may. That they are always receiving, always cataloging, always filing away everything that our ears, nose, eyes, and skin bring in. And once in a great while they give us a phrase or a paragraph and we wonder, WTF?
So this afternoon I am being made wistful by hearing this phrase: Today I feel nostalgia for events that have not happened.
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For those who might also be wistful right now, here’s a good tune for the moment.
The Beautiful Lie, by the Amazing Rhythm Aces
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It’s mid-November and the kids are riding bicycles around the neighborhood while wearing t-shirts. It’s been that kind of month. I can handle warm without breaking stride. It’s freezing drizzles that get me down, and those are front and center in most of my memories of past Novembers.
I own two coats that are proof against really cold weather. Last winter I didn’t wear them at all. One is an old-fashioned thick woolen one, of a style that used to be called a Loden coat. The other is a “puffy,” a down-filled thing that weighs nothing and works wonderfully. I don’t love the look but I do like the comfort.
But if we’re still wearing t-shirts outdoors at Christmastime I will have to rethink my entire cold weather wardrobe. That will be a wrenching thing to have to do. Some of those garments I have owned for more than thirty years. Heavy and sartorially obsolete they might be, but they have served me well and will still be wearable when I am off walking those streets of gold.
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It came to me out of the blue as I fought with the treadmill at the recreation center yesterday. The treadmill, like all of the other machines in the building, is trying to kill me, I know it for a fact so don’t even bother trying to defend them.
I exercise wearing headphones, with basically all of the upbeat songs that I own in a single playlist, and the result is that tunes I haven’t listened to in years get their moment onstage once again. As this one played I realized that it was a perfect metaphor for the dilemma facing all of the lickspittle Republicans in Congress. See if you agree. The music is provided by the Clash, a British chamber music group of the 70s.
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[The following is information I gathered about something I had never thought I would have to deal with in the United States, a secret police force. Of course I was being naive, because although overall I have had great respect for the FBI, there have been times, especially under former director J. Edgar Hoover, when its behavior warranted such a definition.]
Secret Police, Police established by national governments to maintain political and social control. Generally clandestine, secret police have operated independently of the civil police. Particularly notorious examples were the Nazi Gestapo, the Russian KGB, and the East German Stasi. Secret-police tactics include arrest , imprisonment, torture, and execution of political enemies and intimidation of potential opposition members.
Britannica: Secret Police
The much maligned (deservedly so) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency of the Department of Homeland Security is thought by many to be a secret police force. I am one of those many. If we examine the quote above we know that ICE is guilty routinely of all but assassination. Which brings up our own los desaparecidos … what of them?
Here in Paradise we have had only one ICE encounter that I know of. Statewide there are several organizations that keep pretty good track of their depredations. If anyone observes any ICE activity in their community that person is urged to report it to the Colorado Rapid Response Network (CORRN) at their hotline which is operated 24 hours a day by volunteers. Their number is 1-844-864-8341.
There are many worthy organizations providing advice to us to follow if we are detained by ICE agents. One of them is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and I have included a link to their PDF delineating what we can do if we find ourselves involved with these criminals.
When the present regime falls, as it will, the agencies of repression that it has spawned will be disbanded and their members brought to justice. That, my friends, will be cause for outrageous and intemperate celebration. I am already planning some outrageous for myself, I will leave the intemperate to others.
We had guests recently, and it turned out that we had some tasty pastrami left over, and I wanted to do something out of the ordinary (for me, that is) with it. So I decided on making Reuben sandwiches. For no good reason at all we never do Reubens so I bought some sauerkraut and thought I was okay. But I learned that there was more to it than I imagined, including the fact that Reubens are not made with pastrami but corned beef.
Oy! as my friend Rich Kaplan would have said while shaking his head in such situations, you are the whitest person I know!
Here is what the recipe called for:
rye bread
Russian dressing
Swiss cheese
corned beef
sauerkraut
Here is what I had on hand and made into our sandwiches:
rye bread
mayonnaise
pepper jack cheese
pastrami
sauerkraut
Not even close, was I? I was almost ashamed to put them on the table and I explained to Robin how it all happened and I hoped she wouldn’t think less of me and they were probably going to taste ridiculous and could we go out to eat if the sandwiches were inedible?
But … they were totally delicious. Not wishing to confuse the issue any further, I decided to give them their own name. Now, Reuben is a name taken from the Old Testament, and means “Behold, a son.” So I thought I’d turn to that august resource in my quest.
I picked Samuel. It was also Old Testament in origin and one of its meanings is “God has heard.” As in prayer. As in what I did when I realized that I was short several key ingredients.
So, my friends, if you drop by any time soon unannounced you might be served something like a Samuel. Let me know a day ahead and I’ll round up the right ingredients and make you a proper Reuben.
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Low Low Low, by James
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ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshot
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At the Thursday morning AA meeting this week, there were only six of us, all over sixty years old. It was a particularly enlightening get-together, starting with a reading from the book Daily Reflections. The last line of the reading went as follows:
… I practice a discipline in letting go of selfish attachments, caring for my fellows and preparing for the day when I will be required to let go of all earthly attachments.
The line struck me as soooo Buddhist, and I mentioned my feeling to the group. As we went around the tables each of us picked up on the theme of living a life with an eye cast toward its end, and it was interesting to hear from each member as they made their contributions. If there had been a younger member in the room that morning, they might have been repelled or bored to death by such musings, I don’t know. But to the six of us present talking of life and death was as natural as breathing.
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Brown Eyed Handsome Man, by Buddy Holly
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I do try to keep you all abreast of significant happenings in the world of cheese. I really do. But this year’s world competition sneaked up on me and dang, it was all over before I knew about it. This year a Swiss Gruyere won, but I’m not racing down to my local grocery store to look for it, because the production is small and the chances of a sample making its way to Paradise are the same as Kristi Noem being named Animal Friend of the Year by the ASPCA.
But there was a link in the article that caught my eye, suggesting something was the most dangerous cheese in the world. I mistakenly read the article, and now I am trying to find something to read that erases what I learned from my memory completely. All I will say is this – no freaking way would I knowingly have a bite. My suggestion would be to not follow the link I have provided and definitely not read the article.
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I’ve been a fan of the group U2 for more than forty years now. There have been a few albums that really hooked me and a few that I let slide and forgot about, but overall I notice that I responded most to those that explored social justice or spiritual themes.
Favorite album = The Joshua Tree, from 1987, no contest. Favorite song on the album … one of the most moving tunes I’ve ever heard … Mothers of the Disappeared.
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I would never have guessed that one day I would be playing that song while listening with new ears and appreciation. Because now we have our own version of Los Desaparecidos taking place here in America, what with the criminal gang ICE wandering our cities wearing masks and pulling people off the street without any pretense of following the law.
There will be a reckoning for these mobsters one day, their members’ names are being taken, in spite of the masks. But in the meantime brave citizens across this country are doing what they can to make ICE’s predations as difficult for them as they can.
What a challenge it is to live in what only can be called a rogue country and be governed by people you wouldn’t offer shelter to from a blizzard. There will be an end to this, I know, but Lord does it ever add a bitter taste to each day. When this rancid lump of spray-tanned avoirdupois is finally out of office and off the front pages perhaps we will have learned some lessons we need to learn to prevent another such dark time.
I say perhaps because if there is a lesson that I have taken to heart in my time on earth is that we know … the knowledge exists … of how humanity can live together in peace. We know how to feed one another, shelter one another, support one another, respect one another. We could do it. The problem has always been that we allow selfish considerations to keep us mired in mistrust and conflict.
A line from the King James version of the Bible offers a way of looking at the otherwise incomprehensible mess that is planet Earth, at least for me.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Indeed.
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Mothers of the Disappeared, by U2
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Here’s one of those true stories that can get friends going on for hours in a friendly fashion on a winter’s evening. Sigurd Olson was a northwoods guide, professor at a community college, author of more than a dozen books on wilderness, and a major player in getting the Boundary Waters area of Minnesota declared as a wilderness.
Any bookstore in northern Minnesota will stock Olson’s books, and I have read several. His first was named Singing Wilderness, and was published in 1956.
Olson lived with his wife in a modest home in Ely MN. Out back of the house was a small shack where he did much of his writing. On January 13, 1982 he had been working in the shack but decided to do a little snowshoeing and died out there of a heart attack.
On attending to his affairs this exact note was found which he had written earlier that day on his old typewriter.
(The print in the photo is rather small, so I will repeat it: “A new adventure is coming up and I’m sure it will be a good one.”)
Soooo, friends, did he have a premonition of his death? Or do people … some people anyway … read more into these few words than Olson meant? If you came over to visit this winter, we could make hot cocoas and argue about it until we tired and took to our beds. If we found that we really liked each other, we could argue about it the next night as well. I think that two successive nights would about do it.
Robin was in Durango on Wednesday night, while I hung around Paradise to attend an Indivisible meeting on the Disappeared Ones. The meeting went well and at present I am out on the backyard deck where the overwarm day is cooling off right on schedule. The ongoing violation of constitutional protections is one of the more repellent programs Cluck has put into play. It’s straight KGB stuff, Gestapo stuff. The clay that authoritarians use to mold their citizens into subjects.
I took some time to read more tonight about the courage of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, who kept coming back and asking the question of the brutish government “Where are our children?” They came back even when they were being beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and in some cases becoming losdesaparecidos themselves.
Cluck is now breaking the law and disappearing people every day, using the masked thugs of ICE as his henchmen in our own version of the brutish Argentine government of 1977. There is no safety under such a president for any of us. To think otherwise is foolhardy.
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Mothers of the Disappeared, by U2
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Since Robin was away, that evening I went out to supper alone. At the next table was a family consisting of mom, dad, grandma, and three young children. The adults, as far as I could tell, spent way more time corralling their imps than they did enjoying their food.
It wasn’t that the kids were unusually naughty, it was that their energies couldn’t be contained on a chair. My takeaway from watching this drama was twofold. First, that kids in a restaurant can be amusing to watch if they are not yours. Second, I am grateful that I don’t have any small kids of my own any longer, and thus am able to eat serenely while others lose their cool and their appetites.
I still shudder thinking back to the time when my own kids were in their feral stage and the carpeting under our restaurant table looked like a picnic that had exploded. I’m quite sure that the waiters of that time looked on our arrivals with resignation and our departures with relief.
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This is the time of year when visiting the Grand Mesa must be done cautiously. Right after the snows have melted up there, the gods turn loose one of the great plagues of mankind. Instead of saying “Release the Kraken,” however, they smile and whisper “Release the mosquitoes.”
The top of the Grand Mesa, billed as the largest flat-topped mountain in the US (or world), is very different from the valley floor. The types of trees and the abundance of lakes make it much like northern Minnesota. And the month of June in that fine state is another place to find all manner of tiny bloodsucking demons whose names start with the words Culex, Anopheles, or Aedes (there are actually 112 genera of mosquitoes).
Twelve years ago when Robin and I were looking for a place in Colorado to settle and were visiting Montrose we used one afternoon to explore the Mesa just a bit. Taking a short hike proved challenging in that we could not stop to breathe once the beasties zeroed in on the carbon dioxide in our outbreaths. Slapping frantically we ran to the safety of our car, slammed the doors shut, and vowed never to go back in early Summer again.
My father used to awe us children when he would allow a mosquito to light on his arm and completely fill itself with blood, turning its abdomen quite red. We could not imagine ourselves doing such a thing, but watching his recurring performances was both horrifying and fascinating.
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One of Us, by Joan Osborne
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Here’s something anyone of my tender years can use to strike awe into kids. They already know that we were born before digital cameras, before computers, even before television moved from the lab into our homes. So reciting those items won’t stun them one bit. But here’s the phrase that will be absolutely incomprehensible to them and will bring them to their knees, slack-jawed and unbelieving:
Little Home In The Valley 