11/7/24

Tonight playing Uno with Lucia, then reading her White Bird in bed. Going over to Quinn's nook  to  play classic greats, like Muddy Water, and For The Turnstiles, and Dirty Old Town, with Arthur, Lenny, Mike and Jamie. Every time like the most sophisticated wine. Way beyond that really. 

A day of teaching Patti Smith, and Villanelles,  and new Chaucer tales, and listening to kids memorize William Blake. Brilliant stuff.

Arthur asking me about the "pronunciation" of Baktib. 

Sofia going to the Xavier dance with Fynn. Teddy also there. Teddy coming home and playing Duke Ellington's Caravan with Quinn as a last song.  

I mean, really, there are so many great moments. One day is a bonanza feast. 

I didn't even  mention  all of the  food. The drinks. The books. The Prowling Bee blog. (I put up a new one, F754, Grief is a Mouse.)

I played a dozen songs by myself.  Deeply felt.

I watched the end of Disclaimer.  (Eh. But I did appreciate the twist. And Kevin Kline was wicked.)

Poems and music  and art galore. 

I gave away 5 shells. 

It was my Dad's 80th birthday. Happy birthday Dad! You're the greatest. 

5/24/24

Line from a dream this morning: "There glides into place/ a phenomenous race/ of pseudo breakers and Bee keepers"

Woke up at 3 am and wrote of the previous day:

The day as far a as it went. Heaven sent. Bob Moon is the way it ended. (Ed: Bob Dylan's birthday, full moon) The way it began was with yoga and pushups and gardenscapes. Then cheerios with apples and cinnamon and hugs all around. Then school where there was cake and crème brûlée gelato. I taught classes on black swan green by David Mitchell. It was fire. They did a meta essay on the difference between a secret that should go public vs one that should stay private. Meanwhile I caught up on my grading and after, more gelato. Then I came home and read the New Yorker and took a nap. I spent some time today working on next Emily Dickinson poem, F719. Every one is a thrill. Walk with Genevieve to take Beatrix home. Pizza in the park for Fridays in the park. Talk to Nancy and Paul. Read Nancy's 100 word story. Listen to Paul's amazing story about The Prisoner. He will stay in the castle! Then off to Schupback gardens where we sang many songs by The Beach Boys, and Jerry Jeff Walker and the Beatles and Neil Young, with Arthur and Lenny and Jamie and Quinn. Holy singing under the full Bob moon, while singing "It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry" at the very moment an LIRR train rolls by and blows it's whistle. So elevated. Gabe depressed, over text, over the state of the world. Played tennis with another Gabriel and won. Felt good on the court, healthy at 55. Alive happy to be. Music and poetry and teaching and novels and singing and friends and wife and daughters I love and parents still alive. In the zone. Allegra prone. Burnt pop corn smell as I try to sleep. But first this burst of memory. I love you.

memoir note. "I never met a man I didn't like."

 When I was a boy we used to travel down the Will Rogers Turnpike from Joplin MO to Tulsa OK, where friends of my parents lived. About half way there was the Will Rogers Rest-stop. At the Rest-stop there was a statue of Will Rogers. At the foot of the statue there was an inscription. "I never met a man I didn't like." 

This inscription entered my mind as a a melody.

Ba bum                   Ba bum

              Ba bum                     Ba bum      Ba

                                                                         bum.  

At the end of the melody, for the period there was a Boop!

I nev                a man

          er met                 I did'nt

                                                    like   Boop!

I believe the reason this entered my brain as a melody was because my deeper mind instantly knew that these words were important and should be remembered. 

So... it stuck with me! And it has been a lifetime to goal to try to live up to Will's words. I have been severely challenged at times to like certain people. But it's a worthwhile goal, and these challenges are worthy. 

 

                                                                   

memoir note

 I had a vision when I was a kid that I saw a statue deep in the recesses of my own mind. There was no head on the statue. At the foot of the statue it said, "Thou wilt be what thou wilt be."  

I realized even then the incredible double nature of this inscription. On one hand it could mean "thou will it (Wil't) to be what thou will it (Wil't) to be", you will be what you will yourself to be, and that is about self determination. On the other hand it means "thou will be what thou will be", which is closer to something like fate. ("wilt" is an archaic word, used in second person singular. E.g. "I will", "Thou wilt") How can both things be true at once? But I knew that the balance was somewhere between the two, that I didn't have to strive, and neither did I NOT have to strive, that I could strive... striveless. 

This doubleness comes back to me with the Rilke poem that ends, "You must change your life." Does this mean you need to change your life, willfully? Or does it mean you must, as in, you don't have a choice?

I should mention, for fun, that this vision came to me in a meditation lead by the actor that played Starbuck in the hit TV show "Battlestar Galactica". My dad was at a conference selling his Moldevite, and there were workshops. This guy, Dirk Benedict. 

Starbuck lead me to my own future. 

Can't make this stuff up. 

Thou wilt be what thou wilt be.

Grace (sing along)

 I had the idea for the whole world to sing along for peace, hoping my invite would go viral. Instead NO ONE CAME. Not one person, not my friends, not my family. I wonder why?

But though it made me feel ineffectual, it didn't sting. And I can't help but wonder if it was because I let go of it that I was given a kind of grace that far exceeded my plans. When I got to Strawberry Fields there was already a performer there and he was singing "Imagine", the very song I was going to start my sing-along with. This amazed me. I had slipped into grace, which was SOOO much bigger than me, yet included me. 

Kachuk, from Argentina, was the name of the performer. He was very good, and had the crowd singing along. It was almost as if the whole world was ALREADY singing along. I didn't have to help it happen. It was already happening. Or maybe I did have to wish for it, or put myself out there, or something.

I sang along with Kachuk for a half hour as he went through the Beatles' catalog, watching the people, transported. Then I put the playlist on my headphones, got on my bike and sang along as I rode through the park. It was glorious.

At one point in the playlist I included John Cage's 4'33'', which, if you don't know, is just 4'33'' of silence. At first it was hard to stop listening to music and listen to the park. I felt a little bored, like I was in absentia or something.  But I kept listening, and I heard the sounds of voices. I followed them until I got to a protest, an Israeli protest, hundreds of blue flags. It was the Palestinians that I had been grieving for,  but here was the pain of the other side made manifest. And I felt tears welling up. These felt like holy tears, like I had been searching for them. That's what I heard in Cage's silence.

The thing that I needed was to sing with other people, and to cry, and the way it came to me felt like grace. 

Why can't this same kind of grace be given to those suffering in the Middle East? 

The rest of the bicycle sing-along I was in a rare state of spiritual euphoria, a heightened gem-like flame of being. 

Who does this help, but me? 

sing along for peace

 All Saints Day Sing-along for Peace

So old school hippy I am. And proud of it. I was surprised I got only a few likes and zero RSVPs responses for my invitation to come sing along to all time great peace songs from Beatles to Pink Floyd to Bob Marley to John Cage to Bob Dylan to New Order for Gaza and Israel. Is everyone too busy? Or does it just seem dumb? It's not dumb. It's fun. And it's healing. 

I know that to some people this may seem like an embarrassing old hippy notion. And I guess, sure. But it's fun and healing. I know of which I speak. 

Here's a poem made up of lines from the line-up. Sing along as your read along. 

Let me take you down

Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one-

Imagine all the people-

How I wish, how I wish you were here-

Let them pass all their dirty remarks  (One love!)

There is one question I'd really love to ask (One heart!)

Is there a place for the hopeless sinner

Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?

Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner-

One more thing!

Let's get together to fight this holy Armageddon (One love!)

So when the man comes there will be no, no doom (One song!)

Saying, "Let's get together and feel alright." Wo wo-wo wo-wo!

Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner-

People have the power-

I was dreaming in my dreaming-

Vengeful aspects became suspect

and bending low as if to hear

the armies ceased advancing

because the people had their ear

and the shepherds and the soldiers

lay beneath the stars

exchanging visions

and laying arms

to waste in the dust

in the form of shining valleys

where the pure air recognized

and my senses newly opened

I awakened to the cry-

People have the power-

They say every man needs protection

they say that every man must fall

Yet I swear I see my reflection

Somewhere so high above this wall

I see my light come shining

From the West down to the East

All you need is love (all together now)

All you need is love (everybody)

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need.

Everybody's talking 'bout

this-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

Bach's Chaconne into Faure's Requiem

 A day worth remembering. Wake up a little hungover from playing a killer practice set for the Next Waltz with the Flynndiggers in Schupback gardens. Playing with those guys under a full moon is campfire song bliss. They are so good. Witchita Lineman into Neil Young was transcendent. 

After some coffee I graded "new" Canterbury Tales from the sophomores, got through a half a dozen. Then cleaned and went to buy candy for the Halloween party at the park. (The kids have to bring  a bag of candy to be admitted to the party.) Then I played a couple hours of tennis with Gabriel. Super fun. 

After tennis went to the park's halloween party. The Ferriers won group costume. They went the extra mile and actually built a security fence like they have in the movie. Nice.

Afterwards I went home and did some more grading, and read a few Emily Dickinson poems. I'm up to 590 something. Just one banger after another. I spend some time on Prowlingbee's blog commenting on the poems I've just read. I also start Middlemarch, because it is Emily's favorite novel, as well as my favorite novelist's favorite novel (Proust, don't you know.) So how could I not. The first paragraph features these great lines,

"Her passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self."

Finally the family went to eat at a Dominican restaurant in Brooklyn, Puerto Viejo. Good. Fun to see all the costumed Brooklynites out and about too 

From there we went to see a performance of Bach's Chaconne by Doori Na and Faure's Requiem at Co-cathedral of St. Joseph. Two of my favorite pieces of music. They did this incredible thing where the last note of the mind-blowing Chaconne was synced up with the first note of The Requiem, followed by singers walking down the aisles beside us toward the altar. I teared up from the pure beauty of it. 

Then home to watch an episode of "Only Murders In the Building", a show we are loving.

Full day of a full life.