Category Archives: Cinema and Television

Aging, Art and Culture, Astrology, Cinema and Television, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Humanities, Latin, Letters, Literature, Music, Myth and Story, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Translating Metamorphoses, Travel, Writing

Oh, the Wonders We’ll See

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Beltane and the Beltane Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Deb. Robbie. Tal. Gretchen. Alan. Terrence. Jill. Nights. Lunar red. The full red Moon. Cloudy skies. Skipping Sefer Yetzirah. Learning things in astrology. Not enough. Reading plays. Loving it. Art is not only sculpture, prints, paintings, metal work. Literature. Theater. Music. Oh. Remembering.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Alfieri and Felix

Tarot: #8, The Stag

 

“The Stag shows our connection to the universe and…organic life on this planet. The hatchet is a symbolic image of the human will to alter the environment. In order for the environment to change more positively, we need not only more effective actions but also (to accept) our responsibility to nature. On the shield, the picture of a great Oak tree reminds us that we must preserve and protect natural resources.” tarotx.net

 

Wow. Up at 9:22 am this morning. To bed at 10:30 pm. Acting class and pre-bed routine. Woke up and felt great. I went, huh? No time to write Ancientrails before Astrology class. No time to exercise so I skipped Sefer Yetzirah. Skipping class. For me? Hardly ever. I loved doing it this time.

Had brunch, then exercised. Felt and feel great. Pay attention to accidents. Like the fall, yes, but in this case a late night, late morning. Well. I could do this, I guess. Just because for the last 30 years I’ve gone to bed early and gotten up early does that mean I still have to? No. It doesn’t

If my acting lessons take me anywhere, which I’m not expecting, but if they do, rehearsal? At night. Performances? At night. Services at CBE? At night. It would open up a different lifestyle for me.

On that note. I got stuck. My Minneapolis Institute of Arts experience led me to a Johnny-one note approach to the arts. Painted. Sculpted. Printed. Sewn. Splattered. Photographed. Videoed. Yes. If I couldn’t regularly see high quality art of this kind, well…

Then my buddy Alan suggested I take an acting class. Sure. Why not? At the very least a reminder of a different art form. One I’d engaged in the long ago far away. Whoa. Heart work. Body work. Get the mind out of the way work. Reread some contemporary work like The Odd Couple, View From the Bridge, next American Buffalo. Act scenes from them. Develop the Self in a new way.

I mean. Like the proverbial 2×4. Oh. Yeah. And music, too. Gotta get somebody, maybe Alan, to help get my audio world turned on here on Shadow Mountain. Will begin again to read classical literature. Metamorphosis first, I imagine.

As Ode said, routines. The only difference betweeen a rut and a grave are the dimensions. Yeah.

So I may become a later to bed, later to rise guy. For art’s sake.

 

Here’s a realization I had today. When I take something from Taoism, I take it as a Taoist.When I take something from Christianity, I take it as a Christian. When I take something from Judaism, I take it as a Jew.When I take something from Islam, I take it as a Muslim. When I take something from Hinduism, I take it as a Hindu.

Furthermore. When I take something from Japanese culture, I take it as a Japanese. From Colombia as a Colombian. From the Celts as a Celt.

Syncretism and appropriation are dirty words in most intellectual circles. I’m not trying to create a new, smashed together religion, nor am I lifting ideas from their living culture to reorient in mine.

Nope. When I say I’m a follower of Shiva, which I am, I mean I’m aware of and beholden to the cosmic dance of creation and destruction and Shiva is its name. When I say ichi-go ich-e is important for me, I’m saying this moment, this one while I’m typing on the keyboard, throwing these ideas out into the cyberether, will never happen again. And, is precious for that reason. When I say I follow the Great Wheel, I’m an ancient Celtic thinker noticing the stars and the changing of the seasons, tying them together in a long, yet repeating spiral.

I don’t pick and choose. Nope to that either. Some ideas and concepts that come to me as I read, listen, see change my way. When they change my way, they become part of me, part of my ancientrail.

Neither striving for nor hoping for a neat package tied up with a bow. Nicely systematized. Not important to me. Insights into life and how to live it? Very important to me.

Cinema and Television, Colorado, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Weather +Climate

Kavanah

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Spring and the waning sliver of Seoah’s Citizenship Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Snow. Cooler. Cytopoint. Syringes. Home injections. Orgovyx. Erleada. Levothyroxine. Life. Living it. Well. Eudaimonia. Taoism. Travel. Short trips. Long trips. Boredom. Organization. Dullness. Joy. Chicken pot pies. Art. Music. David Sanders. Kate, always Kate. Rigel. Gertie. Vega. The Colorado dogs. With Kep. Who yet lives.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Max. The baby. Growing. Sitting up on his own. Go, Max. Go, Kate.

 

The days of our lives are sand in an hourglass. Do they still make soap operas? Is there still day time TV? I cut the cord so long ago that I have no idea. TV news is an oxymoron. Infotainment is not a thing. It’s a distortion of what the news was meant to be. The strait jacket of a show at one time. Escaped. Death by a thousand channels, most of them unwatchable? Escaped.

If sports were your thing, cutting the cord would have been difficult. I get that. But I was a Vikings fan. The football equivalent of a Cubs fan before they broke away from their apparent destiny. Didn’t miss it. Especially now in Colorado.

Movies. Yes. Series dramas. Yes. Comedy. Yes. Content from all over the world. Yes. With Netflix, Amazon Video, and HBO Max I’m happy. Maybe a bit too happy. The amount of good, even great content, has grown so fast.

Kingdom

The Koreans have given us dramas in a new tone, more human, less formulaic. Then there are the history based series like the Vikings, the Last Kingdom, Qin Empire: The Alliance, Resurrection: Ertugrul. Science fiction.

First run movies. Caches of old movies. HBO Max provides access to the Turner Classic Movies archive as well as Studio Ghibli. And the occasional Criterion flick.

All you have to day is pony up some cash, sit your butt in the chair, find that remote, and you’re off to the Warring States Period, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, Space Force, anime. Spirited Away. I’m only a little ashamed to admit that I love it.

The shame comes in when I admit how much I’ve been loving it. More than I need. Less than I want. Not sure how to balance this as part of my day. I’ve made advances. I’ve taken back reading time from the TV.

Now that my energy has improved, I see the trap the weariness had snapped around me. Oh, I’m too tired. But, I can watch TV. Covid played a role here, too. And Kate’s long illness. However those are dropping away, have dropped away.

Intentional. Kavanah. What’s your intention? A Jewish idea that informs prayer. You’re not supposed to pray without intention. No formulary, rote prayer. Know what you mean to do with your prayer.

Kavanah. Our hours need kavanah. My hours, the late afternoon hours, need kavanah. I’ve allowed myself to get into a rut. Intention can lift me out of it.

Working on it. Boredom helps. Energy helps. The coming of Spring helps. I can do this.

What will help most are two things: 1. finishing the kitchen, common room, my level refurbish, remodel, redecorate. 2. finishing my work with David Sanders, turning the ship of my life toward a new destination without losing the gifts I have in it right now.

A slow process. Grief. For me at least. But, a needed process. Letting go of Kate yet keeping her close. Difficult inner work.

Will be doing more of all this today. And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow hopefully not to the last syllable of recorded time.

Cinema and Television, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Every Single Day

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Spring and the Seoah Citizenship Moon

Friday gratefuls: Therapy. David. A new way of choosing what to eat. (not a “diet”). Ukraine. Putin. Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church. The Presbyterian Church. Reconstructionist Judaism. Taoism. Animism. Paganism. March Madness. How about St. Peter’s! Playing the Boilermakers. Santayana. Unamuno. William James. My always friend, philosophy. And, always Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Energy

 

David’s going to write up some material based on the work we’ve done over the past month or so. We’ll discuss it next week. Still eye on the ball. What’s this new life? What does this 75 year old man want to do next?

wallup.net

An odd feeling drives my interest in it now. Boredom. I’ve argued often that boredom is a good thing. Doesn’t feel good, but the purpose vacuum lures creativity. The boredom grows from my new found energy. I find the late part of the afternoon excruciating. Bored. Too much energy to sit still. Too much habituation over the last three plus years and this last year in particular to sitting, watching TV.

The blank space in the afternoon has become my prod, a goad. What follows from here? Yes, wu wei. Yes. Still, I want to have some things to flow with, to carry me along toward that great ocean beyond this reality. I don’t want to get caught in meaningless productivity or pointless “hobbies”. I also don’t want to continue as I am now. A good sign, I think.

David’s work is part of that. An outside observer, skilled in the psyche. Looking forward to what he has to say.

 

Today was write Ancientrails. Breakfast. David. Workout. Mussar. That got me to 2:30. Kep starts looking at me with those adult doggie eyes around this time. Dinner, dad? Now? No, not yet. 3 pm. Dinner, dad? Now? This is a minute later. Nope. You have to wait. He waits, slumping down on the floor, almost a sulk but not quite.

After that? Not much. TV. Reading Amanda Palmer. Working the Wordle and the Spelling Bee. Looking out at the backyard, wondering when it will hit me. This. Is. The. Way. Considering that may never happen. A little frightening. Forced to live a life of food, reading, friends, and family. Travel. Oh. The horror.

Life is a cabaret, old friend. May it never end.

 

Damn. Those Ukrainians! A counter punch. How bout that? I’ve thought of Paul Wellstone’s buddy, Al Franken. It takes brains to be a good comedian, a talent for observation, for understanding how people’s psyche works. Not a surprise that Zelensky has done well. That he’s done much better than well? A big surprise to Putin and the Russian Army. He may end up having the last laugh.

Saw this on Facebook and can’t resist sharing here:

 

Cinema and Television, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Memories, Minnesota, Tarot, Travel

A busy day

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Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Colonoscopy prep. Jon last night. Cancer worries. Jon’s 53rd on Friday. At Gaetano’s. Ruth and Gabe putting their Hanukkah gift mugs in my cabinet. Our cabinet. Cabinets emptied. Whew. Bowe starts demo today. The new cabinets, the bottom ones needed for the quartzite fabricators are here. Bowe installs those on Thursday. The plan anyhow. Herme is home. Neon. Noble gases. Elements. Sulfur. Helium. Carbon. Uranium. Lead. Potassium.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Phase Four

Tarot: Six of Stones, wildwood

 

Dove off of always under construction Highway 70 at the Peoria exit. Then spent an interesting 15 minutes searching for Identgo, the TSA contractor for my TSA prechek appointment. 39th Street is a boundary line. On its south flank Aurora extends into its eastern suburbs. On its north it serves as an artery for capillary streets that end at the freeway’s fence. Concrete buildings with truck bays facing the street. A few RV’s parked in what look like permanent positions. Lots of extended chain link topped with razor wire. The faceless underbelly of small companies or the warehouses for big ones.

Identgo, also the site of Unicorn Drug testing, sat at the end of one of eight rows of sad, buff colored small offices. Christ-Ministry. Gospel Church. Mountain Stone. Identgo.

I had a thick sheaf of documents, divorce decree, marriage licenses, a birth certificate. They stayed in their envelope. This was a much more casual process than I had imagined. The gender fluid person who checked me had on outrageous boots. Made of brocade with thick laces and standing on 5 inch heels these were uncommon.

“Those are some boots” started a longer conversation. They showed me photos of other cool boots. A Canadian designer was their favorite. He also had high boots that looked like cows hooves. Dress shoes in yellow. Or, fading from yellow to purple.

They had been in Tokyo and NYC working for Identgo. In spite of the cheesiness of the office, the process itself was high-tech and quick. A handheld computer did most of the work. A blue screen for a photo, $85 and Bob’s your uncle.

Hopped onto 70 listening to a CPR program about Westside Story and why Puerto Ricans felt a remake was overdo. Short answer: Rita Moreno was the only PR in the first version though she did win an Oscar. Also, it reinforced Puerto Rican’s as an immigrant group somehow involved in teen delinquency. Might not have been so bad if it didn’t go on to become the best musical and fourth favorite movie of the Oscars.

Turned off I-25 near Bronco’s Stadium and into another, more upscale warren of businesses. Zuni Street. At 13th, near the brand new and strange Meow Wolf, I turned left into a newer, snazzier business mall. Morry’s Neon.

When I got there Tina, Glen, and one of the master benders were eating Mexican food off paper plates. Probably food truck fare. Glen took me back in the shop, plugged in the Hermit. I said. Wow. He smiled. Showed me how he would hang it. Clean it with a soft brush. The transformers good for about ten years. Other than that. No maintenance.

Tina took my money. Glen loaded Herme in the back of Ruby. Onto a moving blanket I had positioned there for that purpose. Back up the hill. And, none too soon.

Since Kate’s illness, the pandemic, and her death, I’ve not gone down the hill much. I find myself overstimulated in the city. Traffic. Exits. Navigating. Too many people. Lights. Police. Just. More. Than. I. Need. Strange for a guy who did  nothing but urban work for over 25 years. But, true. Exurban, mountain me.

When I got back, the remainder of the cabinet cleanout. Though I had a huge stack of boxes in the living room on Saturday, I used all of them except one. I did the last few jars while I fed the dogs this morning. Lots of evidence of mice. Wish I could have a cat.

This whole process got hard. Oh, I remember Kate using this cherry pitter. Who owns a cherry pitter, anyhow? Her canning stuff, pressure cooker, water bath. Empty Ball jars. The mustard yellow fondue pot. A relic of the sixties. Her sixties.

There’s a dark beauty in grief. As it deepens feelings, it opens me to more feelings, to the wonder of our time together. Cooking. Harvesting honey. I came across a quart jar of Artemis Honey with the Ode made label still on the lid. Peaches. 2016. 2018. Western slope peaches. Canned right here. There was currant jelly, too. Ground cherry, wild grape. All by her hand. So much. Quilts. Mug rugs. Runners. What a life we had.

In an hour I’m leaving to take Jon to his colonoscopy. Sarah and BJ, two of Kate’s sisters, may have convinced him to let them help him sort out his house. That would be a big deal. He might get the stimulus to finish the kitchen, other rooms. That would be so good.

 

 

 

Astrology, Cinema and Television, Dreams, Judaism, Kabbalah, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Mystic

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Lughnasa and a slice of Chesed Moon

Fountain formation rocks close and in mid distance

Sunday gratefuls: Cool night. A good day, cleaning and organizing. Grief. Kate, always Kate. Jon feeling better. The Ancient Ones at 9. Sourdough. Sourdough and eggs. Mushrooms. Bread baking. Reconstructing my life. Tarot. Kabbalah. Mysticism. The life of Rocks and Rivers, Trees and Flowers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Book of Life

Tarot: The High Priest, #5 of the Major Arcana

 

Dante Luca Signorelli

Well, all righty then. Got the loft decluttered, though if you saw it you might not agree. I have a different standard for my workplace than my living place. I like both organized, but the point in my workplace is access and stimulation. In my living place I want a clean house, with things put away in their storage spots. I’ve not achieved this yet downstairs, but it’s the goal toward which I’m pruning.

I’m pleased with the work I did yesterday. The flurry of medical matters over the last few weeks defocused me and got me off the pruning path I’d been on. Last week I got back to full time exercising and kept to a single change I wanted to make. All my appointments go in the afternoon, early afternoon if possible. Keeping the morning clear for Ancientrails, working out, and, eventually, writing again.

One change. A small one. Made for four weeks with clear intention. In this case, each time I call an office or a car service center, schedule haircuts I tell them I want to be seen in the early afternoon. Two to three more weeks and it will be part of me. After that, another small change.

So on.

The entire Harry Potter oeuvre, cinema, came to HBO Max on September first. I’ve been watching them, finished the Goblet of Fire yesterday. I love the immersive world created by set and costume designers, the increasingly dark plot lines, watching the young actors grow both into their roles and as people. Rowling’s cleverness, a distinctly British type, makes everything tinged with irony and spooned over with nostalgia.

Puts the seriousness with which I’ve been taking Tarot, Kabbalah, Judaism in a different perspective. Yes, serious. Yes, fun. Yes, not the ordinary persons experience. A sort of hidden world that includes Astrology, too. The occult, if you fancy that term.

Talked to Rabbi Jamie on Thursday and told him about my speculation concerning reconstruction. That it’s content neutral, a hermeneutic, a way of interpreting the human experience of reality, of each other, of the hidden. Also, that it opens the door for Tarot, Astrology, the Great Wheel. They too can be matters of serious consideration, tools for diving into the inner Lakes and Forests of the Other World we each carry within us.

Too, it opens the possibility that the Other World may be just that. May be that, with an emphasis on be. Or, better, the Other World becomes the Other World as we listen to it, feel its presence in our lives.

 

The High Priest

“The Hierophant advises that you return to the role of a meticulous student. Learn everything you can about your chosen area. Let that knowledge become a part of you and an operative influence on your day-to-day awareness. In this way, you can slowly and steadily establish real credibility in your field or chosen subject.”

The dream w women asking me to return, to finish my studies. Facing down the animus figures who were rigid and angry. Following the lead of the anima figure who encouraged me, said yes. Even now 56 years later. I can still study, learn. Write. The German shepherd at the gateway who sprung from beneath a cloak and licked me. The magical themes: gateway, angry men, supportive women, the Shepherd, the fiery chair which burned the men and was cool to me. The strong sense of longing to go back. Be a scholar/student. And a writer. The sense of now is the time. This was all at Wabash, though an updated, unfamiliar one.

This life calls to me. Again. Still. From a deep place. And this card reminds me. Again. Look to the library, to the mind, but most of all to the heart. What matters for my soul? For the souls of others?

 

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Cinema and Television, Family, Feelings, Great Wheel, Kabbalah, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Third Phase

I am

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Lughnasa and the Chesed Moon

Monday gratefuls: Helen Reddy. I am Woman. The Women’s movement. Cancer. Its sequelae: pet scans, orgovyx, friends reaching out, fatigue, persistence. Shortness of breath. Family. T-shirts. Living in the moment. The Day. A Day. This Day.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The voice of the 1960’s

Tarot:  Prince of Pentacles

 

Watched I am Woman. A biopic about Helen Reddy. Got drawn in by a snippet of the movie in which Tilda Cobham-Hervey sings Delta Dawn. Didn’t know that was Helen Reddy. I’ve been listening to it in my head for weeks now, since I thought about a parody featuring the Delta variant.

Not a great movie, but a good one. My anima is strong, perhaps even dominant. Movies which feature women overcoming obstacles and flourishing speak directly to me.

Many tears. Why? Well, sixties music almost always moves me, reminds me of the passion, the wonder, the promise of those magical years. Speaking truth to power. Yes. Especially when the vulnerable do the speaking.

Remembering Kate. Her determination to go to med school. The Dean who tried to turn her away because “You’re already married to a doctor.” Her determination to conquer the obstacles in her life: back pain, sexist managers, a lost voice, her final illness. A strong, smart woman. Ill-used by many of the men in her life. But always, always getting back up and going on.

Cleansing, the lacrimae. Sacred waters. Draining pain and sadness and nostalgia. Bringing me into the present after a trip through the past.

Got a lot done over the weekend. Money stuff. Pruning. Cleaning. Writing.

What is a good use of time? A key question for those raised in the success obsessed American culture. I still clip articles about improving my productivity. Why? That ancientrail, my highest potential, trapped me in a long and narrow tunnel, one I’ve struggled against, embraced, knelt down and crawled through on my hands and knees.

All those novels. Unpublished. Kate wanted me to publish before she died. All that injustice. Still there, seeming deeper and more entrenched now, after all the work. That damning number, carbon in the atmosphere. Still rising.

And then we die. Leaving behind an unjust world, a world heating up behind human endurance, creative works birthed but never raised into adulthood.

Tarot cards speaking to my anima, encouraging her, telling her to dive in, create, dance, sing-the High Priestess, the Lady, even the eight of Pentacles. Today, again, the Prince of Pentacles. That’s the patient, methodical, practical approach guy. Speaking to my animus.

Animus and anima working together, literally yin and yang, vibrating, humming, feeding each other, feeding off of each other. My neshama emerging, cheering them both.

I am Woman. I am Man. I am. Both.

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

The Frozen Rose of Texas

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Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Sunday gratefuls: All the Megillah’s. More snow. More cold. A good sleep. Cold chicken. Red Lobster biscuits. My Ecuador alpaca coat. My new LLBean insulated plaid shirt. My duckies. Love the cold, don’t love being cold.  Vaccines. Covid. 45 gone. 46 in. Judah and the Black Messiah.

Sparks of Joy: Fresh, white Snow. Rigel jumping up on the deck like a 5 year old. Life.

 

 

Those vaccines. Hard to come by up here in the mountains. Not yet. We’ll get them though. Sooner, I imagine. Haven’t gone the obsessive click now, click again, click now, click again route. We’ve survived Covid so far doing what we’re doing. Gonna keep at no visits, grocery pickups, only essential medical visits. Probably for a while after the vaccine, too.

Love that they’re out there. That we’re eligible. That others are getting them. That more will get them. Might be Happy Hanukah and Merry Christmas. Ho, Ho, Ho. or Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel. If that happens, I’ll still enjoy the darkness of the Winter Solstice, but I’ll be right there with the light worshipers, too. Can you imagine how festive a season that will be?

Meanwhile a hyper clean, car sized robot will roam Mars punching holes in its surface and storing soil in special containers for the second part of a three stage project. The second stage is a lander that picks up those containers and the third stage returns them to Earth for NASA and European Space Agency labs. 2025-2027. Far away from the virus infected planet it left last July. Smart Perseverance.

And, maybe, just maybe, our nation will have made progress on sorting out its painful contradictions. I watched Judas and the Black Messiah yesterday on HBO Max. Fred Hampton was 21 when J. Edgar conspired with the Chicago P.D. to eliminate him. 21. When I watched, I kept saying yes, Fred, yes. Power is people. Capitalists, no matter their color, exploit the people. A Rainbow Coalition. Yes, Fred. Then he died in his bed, never waking up, his pregnant Deborah arched over his body.

Of course, the move reminded me of the damning curse of racism, but it went further, much further. Fred brought together Puertoricans and poor whites. He saw the thread that wove together the oppressed and was able to speak to it, to help others see it. No wonder they killed him.

What if the Proud Boys and the Black Panthers saw common cause? They could. It’s corporate capitalism that keeps them both down. What if those of us on the far left joined, too. And Chicanos. And Asians. And Native Americans. There would need be no violence. That sort of self-awareness would win at the ballot box.

I know. Texas. How would you like a $16,000 bill for keeping the heat on? See the paragraph above.

Art and Culture, Cinema and Television, Literature, Media, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Travel, US History, Writing

Acts of Creation

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Imbolc and the crescent Wolf Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Beau Jo’s pizza. Easy Entree’s Chicago beef sandwiches. Keepin’ me sane. Kate. Somewhat better days. Trying new things with her nourishment. That crescent Moon. Sleeping through the night. Invisible City, a short Netflix series featuring Brazilian folklore. Latin American magical realism. 100 Years of Solitude. Marquez.

Folklore. Legend. Fairy tales. Mythology. Religion. Art. These are some of my favorite things.

Just finished the short series, Invisible City, on Netflix. It features Brazilian folktale creatures like the Saci, the Cuca, the Cucupira, the pink River Dolphin. Green Frontier, a Colombian series from 2017, focuses on the Amazonian forest and the supernatural.

Netflix and to a lesser extent, Amazon Prime and HBO Max, keep offering films and television series from all over the world. I love this, especially the original programming on Netflix produced by local creatives in their own language and in their own thought worlds. The supernatural dramas draw me in though they vary a great deal in quality.

I also love dramas and mysteries that show life in different places. Gomorrah, organized crime in Naples. The Alienist, turn of the century (19th to 20th) New York, Monarca, contemporary Mexico City, Wild District, contemporary life in Bogota and the lives of guerillas. Many others.

Since I can’t get out, get around, these days, travel comes to me. The anthropologist in me loves the folktales, the cultures, the different mores. And the ticket price is far lower.

Reading lately. Finished a few chess related novels after watching the amazing Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. Finishing Theodora Gossa’s European Travels for Monstrous Women and will pick up Kim Stanley Robinson’s, the Ministry of the Future next. Science fiction and fantasy also live in the fairy tale, folktale, legendary realm.

Writing. Jennie’s Dead. Ancientrails. Writing a Psalm for the Rabbi Jamie class. Not as much as I’d like, more than I’ve been doing. Just bought some Brazilian folklore books. Might be good basis for a new novel.

I have another novel idea I’ve been kicking around for years, one that would examine white supremacy, maybe militias. This one emerges not from the favorite things I mentioned above, but from my growing up years in Indiana. Like my buddy Mark Odegard this work sustains me, even though it may never see the light of day.

My birthday’s coming up and I’m playing with the idea of a podcast or a Patreon website on which I would read my own novels, figure out some sort of subscription service. Not a new idea, novels were sometimes published in newspapers, magazines, in serial fashion. Combine my speaking voice with my creative voice. The birthday part of this is buying items for a podcasting studio.

Friend Alan Rubin has a lot of experience in audio recording and has created a studio for himself to do voice overs and commercials. He’s advised me. I’ve watched Youtube videos and just bought Audio for Authors, a book about this sort of project.

So, yes, the creative me stays alive, is never far from my consciousness.

The only rule is to work. From a list of rules by John Cage. That’s the trick. Persistence.

Aging, Cinema and Television, Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Family, Friends, Humanities, Literature, Politics, US History, World History

And they went and died about it

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Winter (last day) and the Imbolc (Wolf) Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Kate’s better couple of days. Rigel, who gets up between 6:30 and 7:00. I get up at 5:30 now, better rested. Resurfacing after 3 plus weeks of difficult days and nights. The Lupercalia. Lycaon. Arcadia. Pan.

How many people have ever lived? Somewhere between 100 and 113 billion. See this wikipedia page for data. Got to thinking about this a few nights ago.

How many people do you know? Probably higher than Dunbar’s number of the 150 with whom we can maintain stable relationships. This article posits a number between 290 and 600. The same article ends by saying most people know only between 10 and 25 people they can trust.

Let’s imagine the number you trust is 25. The high end. Out of all the people that have ever lived you trust only .000000000025 of them and you know fewer than .0000000006 of them.

Why am I belaboring this idea? Good question. What got me going was the idea of how few people, in relation to the historical population of the earth, I know. This thin, wafer thin, slice is the group upon which I base my understanding of our species. Sure, I’ve studied anthropology and psychology, both ways to understand our species considered in aggregations like cultures or personality types, but these are at best reductionist views of exceedingly complex phenomena.

Reading helps. Novels in particular. Even there though we’re viewing characters through the understanding of a novelist whose known slice of humanity is as wafer thin as our own.

In any case we compare our learnings from those methods against the people we know. Who aren’t that many, really. Especially historically. Here’s another issue. We don’t know 600 diverse people probably. Some may. But most of us know people whom we’ve met at school, in our hometowns, in our neighborhoods. Largely people like us.

My point, you might reasonably ask? How little we know about our own species. How little we can know, even if we study the humanities, anthropology, psychology. How small our cohort of known persons is, how really small our cohort of trusted persons is. Given this reality is it any wonder that the 331,000,000 US citizens break into so many small and self-interested groups?

And yet. We have this from Our Town.* Notions, ideas, beliefs. These are the trail markers on the ancientrail of human life. We use them to guide our actions because we can’t use our exhaustive knowledge of life as a human. We don’t have it. Can’t have it.

And we go and die about those notions, ideas, beliefs, or, as General Patton memorably said, “We make some other poor sonofabitch die for his country.”

Humility. That’s what all this means. Provisional, what we believe. What we know. What guides us. Based on so small a sample of other’s lives that it might as well be considered nothing. But of course it’s not. It’s our life, our way of being as part of this hundred billion mass of humanity that has lived and died upon this spaceship Earth.

The things a guy thinks about. Geez.

 

*Our Town, Act 3, spoken by the play’s narrator, the Stage Manager, as he gives the audience a tour of the town cemetery, pointing out meaningful landmarks:

“Over there are some Civil War veterans,” the Stage Manager says. “Iron flags on their graves . . . New Hampshire boys . . . had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they’d never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves. All they knew was the name, friends — the United States of America. The United States of America. And they went and died about it.”

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Humor, Poetry, Third Phase, US History

Speak Across the Years

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Samain and the Thanksgiving Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: The Clan. Gathering in an hour. Tom and his gift book. His thinking of Ruth. The morning darkness lit by the Thanksgiving Moon. Orion and his great Dog pursuing the hunt toward Mt. Evans. 50 days until Trump leaves. Vaccines. The holidays of light. Needed to dispel the four years of ethical darkness. The gas heater here in the loft/studio. Emerson. Lao Tze. Camus. Hesse. Aldo Leopold. Wendell Berry. Wes Jackson. Thomas Berry. Rilke. Saints in my short, very short, tradition.

 

And your world, it’s rapidly changin’. Wow. Trump defeated. Vaccines looking good. Kate with almost a month of good days. Add your own spectacular news here.

However. Even rapid change is sometimes not enough. This month, this December, will require all the good feeling we can muster. For ourselves, those we love, those in our neighborhoods and communities. It will require all the festivals of lights we celebrate: Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, New Year’s. It will require an extra effort to avoid a, “I’ll be dead by Christmas.” holiday season. Going home for Christmas may take on a new meaning unless we stay. at. home. wear. masks. distance ourselves from others. worship virtually. Flu. Covid. Cold. Holiday celebrations. = Potential disaster.

Why? Because the surge, that one where the Covid infections became a hockey stick graph like climate change? Is about to surge. According to the NYT this morning, all of California’s intensive care beds could be overwhelmed by mid-month. We’ve not seen the uptick from Thanksgiving travel. It’s coming. The same article says that we hit four million infections in November, more than double the previous record. 1.9 million. When? October. Both before the Thanksgiving holiday visits.

We’re in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. We can cross the bridge of death to a vaccine and Biden future but first we have to say just how fast the unladen swallow can fly. Or, Come up with capital of Assyria. If we’re wrong, well… I’ll give you a hint. Tell the gatekeeper that he needs to stay socially distanced, get his vaccine, cheer Biden at his inauguration (virtually), and, close the bridge, go home, and stay there.

Rereading some Camus. I’m mostly with him. His notion of the absurd. The universe rolls on with or without us. There is no meaning to life. In other words the universe does not have an Easter egg for us that, if only we look in unlikely places, will reveal itself, as in a computer game.

I part company with him on the notion that we cannot give meaning to our life. I believe we can give meaning to our own lives. We can choose, a critical idea in existentialism, to live for others, with others in spite of that ultimate absurdity of our situation.

Thanks to Tom for sending out this poem, Wendell Berry’s XI.

We can choose, as Wendell Berry asks us, to:

“Come,
willing to learn what this place,
like no other, will ask of you
and your children, if you mean
to stay. “This land responds
to good treatment…””  Wendell Berry, XI

He addresses this plea to these persons:

“The need comes on me now
to speak across the years
to those who finally will live here
after the present ruin…”

This is crossing another bridge of death, the one after Covid, the burning of our planet. I agree with Berry that there will be a life after we’ve ruined this one. It will be. So different. Not recognizable to us. Our grandchildren will know. And their children will know nothing else. Not that far away in human terms.

Go to a new tab, quick. Look up how fast an unladen swallow can fly. It just might save your life.