Tag: love

In The Trenches

jono55

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.

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Our streets come alive
Injustice quickening cold
Fury in our souls

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Screenshot

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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.

Autumn Leaves, by Eva Cassidy

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.

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Mindless On Purpose

jono55

Once in a great while I have to leave the world of reality behind and slip into that space where ordinary life is not allowed to go. Where age and situation and doing the right thing are irrelevant. It’s a bit more difficult to do since I became a sober person, but I can if I puts my mind to it … enter music.

Back when I was shooting at my brain with single malt scotches and Pouilly-Fuissé I would put some Neil Young on the turntable, power up the Bose speakers to dangerous levels (capable of killing roaches within a thirty foot radius), and sink into a soft leather chair with my glass in hand. At those moments rock and roll and I became one, similar to the unity that Buddhists talk about.

Problem was, of course, that the next day those ecstasies had been replaced by that painful bit of instant karma called the hangover, which was ever more durable than the “fun” had been. And where did that bruise come from? And what day was it, anyway?

Today there are all sorts of nastinesses out there to sabotage one’s mood and serenity. To get away from them without chemicals requires different sorts of thinking. Meditation … yoga … deliberately letting go of the attachments to the news cycles (which are a form of poison in themselves). And sometimes it is as simple as listening to music. Today I am one with the universe and George Thorogood.

Who Do You Love, by George Thorogood

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This fashion note was prompted by a Times article on Sunday dealing with the present trendiness of very small swimsuits on men. It’s not so much worrying about that small area that the suit covers but the vast area that is now open to the public gaze that would trouble me.

The gentleman in the photo above with his smoothly muscled body and delicately tattooed dermis might as well be a different species entirely, in that he does not represent in any way what I would look like in such a garment.

In my case, time has worked its wonders behind the closed doors of cotton and polyester, and I fully intend that those doors remain firmly shut. Therefore, in response to as yet no questions at all from the reading public, I make this promise: In spite of my wish to be a model of sartorial perfection at all times, I will not be purchasing or wearing any swimming outfits that are smaller than a large Band-aid.

You can take that to the bank.

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If, after I have left this earth behind, anyone wished to play something to remind themselves of me (and why in God’s name would they do this?), this song would do handily. Bob Dylan wrote the gently mournful tune, and there are numerous excellent covers out there. I came upon this special one this morning and thought I should share it with you.

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There is a crack in everything … that’s how the light gets in

Leonard Cohen

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What? Two music videos? Is this an MTV flashback?

Nope. These two are really to remind us that although there are people loudly shouting shit every day into our faces … let’s name names, shall we … although our president is loudly shouting shit every day into our faces, because that is what he does best … there are people all around the country and the world who are every day working hard, raising families, contributing to their societies, creating beauty.

This morning I came across one of those moments where somebody had the cameras rolling and an interesting experiment became a joy to be shared. A slender blade with which to cut through the ordure and let the light through.

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Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water.”

Zen Proverb

I’m looking at the week ahead and there is much work to be done. Fortunately I don’t have to do it all, which is a good thing, due to my being better suited to dozing in a rocker than carrying a torch.

One by one people are waking to the possibility that our national nightmare need not continue. That we water carriers and wood choppers of the earth can join together to make a wave that will cleanse our country and make it stronger.

(end of sermon)

And now, dear hearts, if you would turn in your hymnals to …

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One Word … Plastics

jono55

Robin and I just finished up the series Adolescence, on Netflix. There are only four episodes, for which I am oddly grateful, because at the end we were both wrung out, which is a testament to the skill and passion of those who brought the story to life. There was not a wasted moment in its telling.

I have witnessed enough real-life tragedies to have developed some defenses, in order that I don’t become a salty puddle on the floor with each one. But this one got to me, and at the end, the very last words uttered brought tears.

“I’m sorry, son … I should have done better.”

I suspect there are many parents out there who have said exactly these words at one time or another in their lives. I know that I have.

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From The New Yorker

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Fire On The Mountain, by Jimmy Cliff, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart & Bill Kreutzmann

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Since I last mentioned it, there have been more articles where investigators find microplastics in our body organs. It seems that wherever they look, they find.

Perhaps we shall soon be required to wear tattooed-on labels that read something like this;

  • Do not microwave
  • Do not put in oven
  • Not dishwasher safe
  • Use only mild detergents
  • Dispose of properly

Cremation may eventually be forbidden because of the toxins released when plastics are burned. We shall have to be recycled instead and be reincarnated as travel cups.

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The Graduate (1967)

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In the post just previous to this one I put up a music video that starred the Badlands of South Dakota in the back ground. The Lakota called this place mako sica, the early French trappers named the area les mauvaises terres à traverser, or difficult lands to cross. It’s one of my favorite places, and has much to offer in beauty and uplifts to the spirit.

I have camped there, hiked there, ridden motorcycles through there, suffered dehydration there, been repeatedly awed there.

Whenever offered an opportunity to visit this unforgiving land, I take it.

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Ripple, by The Grateful Dead

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Our younger cat, Willow, has given me a few more gray hairs this week (actually, that is impossible as there is nothing but gray strands up top). I am typing this while waiting in the veterinarian’s exam room.

This is the fifth day of an illness without a clear-cut origin or resolution in view. Blood work, urinalysis, abdominal X-rays, subcutaneous fluids given twice, two visits to vets … it all adds up to a metric ton of concern.

I was going to write that this business of worrying is one of the drawbacks of loving something or somebody, but … not really a drawback, I think. It’s where I get to put to good use those muscles of compassion and empathy that I haven’t used recently. Growing pains is what it is.

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From The New Yorker

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