This photograph showed up on Substack on Sunday. Of an exhausted Ukrainian soldier sleeping in a trench with his companion. Harshness and tenderness in one heartbreaking frame. He is so young, so bruised and muddy. The cat holding on to his shirt with that single paw. There are tears to be shed for this pair of soldier-friends. They should be home, not out where people are trying to kill them. May God please damn all to hell the men who make wars.
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I have been so glad that our troubadours are raising their voices against Cluck’s depredations. In the Twin Cities on No Kings 3 there were musicians Tom Morello, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, and Maggie Rogers. Music has such power. It slices right past any defenses or cynicism we might be holding up to shield ourselves and hits us where it sticks. Baez and Rogers singing The Times They Are A-Changing was a linear connection, a passing of torches.
There are many American men and women who have been on the right side of change and history, but none more consistently than Joan Baez. Her life and her music are well embedded in my DNA … CRISPR-ed in by time and circumstance.
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How fragile we all really are
Like straws of glass
In a windy field
We feel so strong
So confident
When standing on our own
Admiring of ourselves
Our beauty and the distance we have come
When suddenly a wayward wind
Breaks off a piece of us
And sends it tumbling to the earth
It’s when we soften, when we flex
And bend before the gale
That we survive
And when the wind dies down
We spring up
Wiser, stronger, taller than before
Ready now to leap another hurdle in the row
That circumstance has left there in our way
We can’t complain that life is not the way we wish
It’s not a promise
Of a road, a list of happy guarantees
Life is life
No more, no less
Perhaps it could be looked at
As a set of chances
To attain a goal, a happiness
And if we reach one, why, let out that joy
Crack open that champagne that you’ve saved
And celebrate your little victory
Before the day is done.
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To me there are few pleasures in this world better than sitting down to a steaming bowl of soup. Not just any old slop, mind you, but something warm and liquid and composed mostly of umami. And if one lives long enough a list of favorites begins to arise. One of my own faves I first encountered at the chain of restaurants called Olive Garden. Its name? Zuppa Toscana. It knocked me off my chair.
Such flavor, such delicacy … even a bouquet! I gobbled it up and immediately ordered a refill, which I have been doing ever since when offered the opportunity. Like last evening at a local restaurant. Last night’s version was good, but not quite up to the original.
But here comes the good part. At least a couple of decades ago I ran across a bootleg recipe that promised exactly the same flavors as those of the Olive Garden version. It lived up to that promise and has done so every time I make it. So anyone with the recipe in their hand has a power that can only be granted by the gods – and now, standing in for them, me. Click on the link and be empowered, but don’t stint. Use a good grade of sausage and you can’t go wrong. Zuppa Toscana. You got it.
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Little Home In The Valley 