Music on the River

August 1, 2021 11:58pm

I played in a jam at Turners on the River. The afternoon was sunny, cool and breezy with a north wind that came across the water and played its own melody. We don’t get this weather often in the Ohio Valley in August and the barges and sailboats cruising the river added to the notes dancing through the cool, dry air.

I sometimes just stop and listen to the other players, trying to figure out what they’re doing or just to enjoy the song. Today one of the guys did Bill Monroe’s “The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake”. He sang it very well and this performance, for me at least, was one of those times when, somehow, time slows; every motion, gesture, and inflection seems fraught with meaning and you feel the emotion of both the singer and song writer as the story of the little girl bitten plays out. Here’s Bill’s rendition. Enjoy!

National Debt….and I ain’t talkin’ money

August 3, 2021 9:12am

Once again, we arrive at that time in the ongoing story of our nation when leaders begin to wring their hands and take one of two stances: (1) the country is on the verge of shutting down and we must take immediate action or the whole facade of civilization will crumble or (2) public display of disbelief that the other guys (those who took stance #1) think we can just keep raising the debt ceiling with no repercussions while the #2’s privately believe that they also must raise the debt ceiling or risk losing their next election.

These two stances appear to fall along party lines but in fact lurk in the dark recesses of all politicians’ souls. It’s like an addiction. Once you cross the line (debt ceiling), it is very difficult to get back.

Nevertheless, most rational people understand that there WILL be repercussions at some point. Others believe that we could, for example, mint a trillion dollar coin and pay off the debt with the coin. Now you must bear in mind that this brilliant strategy….I would almost call it an inspired genius on par with that of Forrest Gump, was suggested by populist presidential candidate Bo Gritz in 1992, according to some sources, at a time when a trillion dollars was some real money. Senator Everett Dirksen is credited with the saying, “a billion here, a billion there….pretty soon, you’re talking some real money” but admitted that a reporter erroneously quoted the “pretty soon” part and Dirksen never corrected it.

Anyway, in 1982, Ronald Regan increased government spending – pushing it over that magical mark of ONE TRILLION dollars and we never looked back. Currently, the US mint would need to mint 28 of the trillion dollar coins and we’d still be way over the debt that concerned Dirksen in the ’60’s.

Here’s what the future may hold if we don’t address the debt.

You see, this debt is like being on a roller coaster….you think all is well until you crest that summit but then the die has been cast and there’s only one outcome….you’re going down.

Problem is…there are those who believe in Modern Monetary Theory. They think we can just continue to print money forever – with no ill effects. So, again, we have a situation that one would think is pretty cut and dried which is interpreted completely differently by each of us. All of our national problems…..debts, if you will, are seen through the same lens. Our views, the results of our perceptions of life….once monolithic (compared to today) and now fragmented….a vision through the kaleidoscope of a diverse population that increasingly appears to be losing the few stands of commonality….of community and shared experiences that might bind us into a nation instead of a farrago of interest groups, tribes, cliques, claques, clubs and parties with nothing holding the center.

See the essay Diverse, Divisive, and Panarin Essays & Misc. | Borderland Journal

Lena Olin – Untouched Pools

August 3, 2021 12:35pm

I saved this quote from actress Lena Olin (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Chocolat, etc) and just ran across it again.

“I want to show that from the negative, when you dare to see it, the positive is born, because there is the root to the good. I have inside myself, for example, a sharp aggression. But if you remove it, I lose my creativity. I have a great insecurity, but if you remove it, I also lose my sensitivity. Good theater is the theater that can make it a little attractive, a bit cool, to have these dark inner depths. You must be a bit afraid of them. I have a big need of spending time being alone, just to fear these dark sides. We must have secrets. That’s why I almost never agree, or rarely, to really personal interviews: you must have large pools, untouched inside yourself.” (on acting, theater and her interest in playing dark women roles on stage and in films)

“There are no patterns that lasts a lifetime. Some people can’t stand the floating borders. They decide on one life philosophy and live thereafter. But I’ve decided not to decide. I don’t know everything. I don’t understand everything. Both my own and others reactions are often a mystery to me. I let it be that way, hoping that maybe, instead, I can learn to understand the pattern of no patterns.” (on life, people and relationships) – LENA OLIN

Wine Hoarder

August 6, 2021 10:11pm

Today we went to an estate sale at which I bought a whole lot of wine-making equipment. This had one important result: it proved that I have become a hoarder. Since I began making wine, I have made what??? a couple dozen bottles of some substance that poses as wine but which in reality is barely drinkable. So why would such a poor vintner buy more equipment – simple, he is a hoarder.

I have three gallons of blackberry fermenting now but the new equipment compels me to buy some concentrate and start a new batch of something!

Tonight, we finished dinner and I retired to my dream chair hanging in a new place from which I could see the pond. The weather has returned to typical Ohio Valley heat/humidity. In the evenings, you may avoid perspiration by eliminating all movement….if, IF there is at least a little breeze.

The upper stories of two houses were all that were visible but I could hear the sounds of workmen removing the siding from the house of one of our nearest neighbors whose house we cannot see.

A sweat bee alighted on my middle toe as I read “The Man Without Qualities.” The bee was silhouetted against the pond in the background…he had no idea he was on the toe of a being he could not imagine. Perhaps we are similarly positioned.

What of the book???? “The Man Without Qualities”….the dust jacket said Robert Musil would give Proust and Woolf a run for their money. He is their equal when he is writing about the inner life of his characters but it seems almost as if another writer takes the reins when he writes of the daily life of the characters, the plot suffers and I question the writing. I have not read anyone whose abilities fluctuate so wildly. I would recommend it but with the caveat that you should brace yourself to be whipsawed between the plot and the psychological insights.

Earth’s Reality

August 9, 2021 10:04pm

Moist atmosphere envelopes me at the threshold. Under pearl sky, on rain wet August dry grass I pass.

The quiet distance, demure; softens all sound.

The Earth has its own reality. The mind conceives another, of infinite possibilities, all leading back to Earth and acceptance.

We appeared here on a whim of a myth of a fantasy and will leave with no ceremony or notice.

What do you see. What do you feel. Dumb resignation…. or submission?

Or do you have brave words?

Speak them and depart; they will echo and fade.

Silence returns and time begins anew.

Lost Time

August 11, 2021 9:10pm

Like Proust, I am in search of lost time. Finding it, however, is a futile exercise; it is only memories of things long past that cannot be relived or changed.

Time does give one perspective. Not too many years ago, I was less observant, seeing only obvious changes. Take seasons for example,,,,once, fall came with cold weather, now, it is mid-August and I’ve noticed the loss of leaves from the River Birches for weeks Other trees have lost the deep green of spring and early summer – fading to a lighter shade to match the fading sun now setting well before 9 pm.

Although here in the Ohio Valley, we’re still subjected to oppressive heat and humidity, I can feel the changes in the air that comes as we circle toward equinox. The garden is winding down – the corn we enjoyed is now way too mature and hope now lies in the waist-high second crop. The squash is long gone and the potato vines have disappeared from hills that still yield the starchy nuggets my wife added to our own tomatoes, zucchini, and garlic….a new Greek dish destined to become a favorite.

The lawn grows very slowly now but the back field I cut with the big tractor favors the cool season fescues which seem to appreciate the dwindling sunlight as much as the cooler nights that will really encourage their growth in just a few weeks.

Perhaps I notice these things now because I have time to sit and watch the world around me instead of pursuing some artificial goals that I once thought were my life.

As I walked in the August dusk, a sliver of moon hung in the western sky above a pale and fading sunset – evidence of the close of another day of lost time.

Burial – No Do-Overs Allowed

August 14, 2021 4:30pm

Yesterday, I rode with my Aunt and my parents through a parched central Kentucky landscape to a funeral at Perryville – site of an important Civil War battle. Outside, the temperature hovered in the low nineties, inside the vehicle, we watched the fading wild flowers of summer flit by our cool tinted windows while bleeding soldiers dying for something peered into our car, mystified at the strangeness of it all.

My father and my aunt are the last of 11 siblings that my grandparents raised on various farms around Gravel Switch, KY….home to the oldest continually operating store in KY – Penn’s. Dad is filled with stories of life on the farm during the depression which he says they didn’t even notice. He freely shares these tales, sprinkling them with references to his military experiences and the year in the Korean War. My mother just rolls her eyes; she has heard it all ad nauseum. The average age of these three is….what? 86? 87? and I’m the pup at only 66….well, I will be in a few days.

At the funeral home my cousin lies in repose. This death not unexpected the mood of some frequently is light, for others, it is a somber reunion punctuated with tears and broken voices. The grandchildren take it the hardest….one is a police officer like his father but unable to contain his emotion while speaking of the loss of a beloved grandfather. His sister, a church worship leader, sings a couple of songs and is as good as anyone you’ll hear coming out of Nashville. Listening to her, I wish the song could just go on forever.

We talk with relatives not seen for many years and catch up on family and careers. The pastor tells of the life and faith of the departed and then we all file out to drive to the cemetery five miles away where many of my ancestors are buried. My mother chooses not to walk through the heat and uneven ground up to the burial site so I escort her to a shady tombstone where she can be a little cooler. I go on to the gravesite and listen to some final remarks and a prayer from the pastor while all around the still summer pastures and hayfields stretch to the distant knobs.

It’s a funny thing about death….I believe that when you’re young and have not really come to grips with this life, you secretly think there’s going to be an opportunity for a “do-over”. And then you finally realize, no, it’s pretty final when it ends.

They are Coming

August 24, 2021 10:28pm

Do you hear it? That low background sound – like the grinding of massive rocks? A stone gate swings on pillars of granite, opening the way to hell.

A ball of molten lava with a skin of cooler rock turns slowly against the black emptiness. Four billion years of cooling it took for the dried rock surface to reach a thickness of a few miles. All our history – advances, wars, loves, hates, empires, religions, philosophies – all conducted on a brittle, thin, razor’s edge that, in geologic time, is so very unstable and changeable that it has driven life close to extinction. But we are unaware….and uncaring.

Listen! Did you hear that crack? All it would take is for the grinding rocks to open and release their sulphurous demons upon the earth – then would our petty concerns be properly positioned.

Shush! Quiet! They are coming.

Nihilism

August 26, 2021 11:52pm

I picture a scene from some prospect in the Milky Way. I am just barely able to see the blue dot that is Earth among all the black and empty space and I know that upon that planet I sit contemplating my purpose in the universe, the probability that there is none, and the consequences of this admission.

I am ordinary and unremarkable in every way that humans are evaluated so even if I had known earlier what I now know, what could I have changed? No possible alternative outcomes of this life would make any difference. I’d still be the dumbass sitting in a chair on that little blue dot trying to determine how and why I ended up realizing I have no purpose.