Habit is necessary. It is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive ... one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in the big things, and happy in small ways.
~ Edith Wharton
Getting this tattooed on my....
I had marveled that she was still alive & in fact she made it to 97. I first heard her a few years ago when I found her version of "I know where I'm going" (from a wonderful Archers movie of the same name, with a young Wendy Hiller). She sang with the Chambers Brothers & I learned that she was one of the few white singers who performed with black blues musicians in the 1950s & 60s. She stuck to her radical guns her entire life. No tricks in her voice but it came right at you. The same conviction in her songs as in her politics.
So youth pastor & "Christian" musician Zach Radcliff, of Michigan (Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor), known to say hideous things about lesbians, gays, & the like, was arrested for 10 years worth of child sex abuse. Hey buddy, clean up your own disgusting self before you have an opinion on anyone else. His father is the pastor of the church & spews his own ugly sentiments.
These kinds of crimes are so common that it's almost not worth commenting on them. Who ARE these hypocrites? Why are they so often wearing MAGA hats?
Jeg elsker norsk og norsklæreren min. Hun er tålmodig, oppmuntrende og morsom. I dag var min første privattime. Hun hadde utviklet en god timeplan for meg. Jeg kan nesten norsk. Jeg skal snakke norsk!
Why would it be hoarding if I had thousands of shoes or socks or plates or sad-eyed Keanes but not books? Is it hoarding to have more than a functional number of friends? Obviously not. Books are as various & necessary ~ the friend you see once a year to go to the opera, the same-time-next-year baseball game goer, the friend you talk to every day, the friend you call to share good news, the one you commiserate with about relationships. You can have books, like friends, for any or all occasions.
And even though I own more books than I can ever read, I buy or check out more all the time. I wouldn't buy a pair of shoes I didn't intend to wear, but I buy books all the time knowing I'll never open them. If that's any equivalence to a gambling (say) addiction, I totally get it. It's the moment of acquisition, the rush of the bet/purchase. What comes after is a different emotion entirely.
And yet, if I had to, I would walk away from (almost all of) my books. I have them because I can, because I don't have to walk away (yet).
A home without books is a home without laughter, without love, without curiosity, without friendship.
I do try to keep them on the shelves & not spilling over to the floor or chairs. It might be time for a wee purge to get back to that status. Sigh.
It is comforting when one has a sorrow to lie in the warmth of one's bed and there, abandoning all effort and all resistance, to bury even one's head under the cover, giving one's self up to it completely, moaning like branches in the autumn wind.
~ Marcel Proust
If this doesn't cheer you up, you have a heart of stone.
As Oscar Wilde said, One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.
I forgot to say I'd be off Thursday & Friday for the holidays. Next Thursday & Friday too. Ate outdoors in a hut half-open to the sky to remind myself of the impermanence & fragility of this life. It's a perfect fall day. That's enough for now.
My neighbor, Jojo, modeling a lobster Halloween hat for cats. Originally worn by Buster of blessed memory.
Would the cats eat Halloween pumpkins? The mellocreme kind not the farm-raised vegetable.
Not by me! I'm in love with this poem.
Prayer (I)
Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth
Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
The land of spices; something understood.
George Herbert
Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.
~ Claude Debussy
Still trying to come up with something to say about this. I agree ~ & don't. Sometimes starting with rules opens up the work enough to become art. I don't think he's saying the opposite of that.
Bomb threat & my synagogue was evacuated. Back in after a thorough search.
Why not just set a bomb & take off? Why the warning? To sow terror but not cause mayhem?
Nonetheless, I feel cleansed.
Fighting a cold isn't the best way to get in the spirit of the last of the days of awe, when our fate (written on Rosh Hashanah) will be sealed. Certainly not able to explain why the symbolism & centuries of pondering by great thinkers makes me want to be part of this profound day.
Going back to sleep in the hopes that I can stagger to the synagogue for Kol Nidre.
See ya on the other side...
A friend who uses a wheelchair asked me to go with her while she picked up her new one & then drive the old one back to her place. Sure! I'm a driver, I can drive a wheelchair, I figured.
It isn't that hard, once you get the hang of the joystick & the way it can do tight turns. I wasn't ready to maneuver onto the bus so we went the whole way in the streets: narrow sidewalks, broken curbs, cars & pedestrians blocking our path. It was nervewracking. I went bamming through puddles before I learned that my little motor could get me up to the sidewalk without needing a running start. I understand a wheelchair makes it easier for people who have mobility issues, but boy, don't be in any rush.
The highlight was when I was leaving my friend's building after parking the second chair. She told me the doorman would probably be puzzled, so as I walked out & he was doing a discreet doubletake, I threw up my hands & said, It's a miracle! Oh, did he laugh! That was fucking awesome, he said, excuse my language. It WAS fucking awesome, I said, & he laughed harder. You got me good, he said.
P.s. If you are interested in donating to a very worthy organization, Free Wheelchair Mission makes & sends simple, sturdy, "off-road" wheelchairs to people in dozens of developing countries, making it possible for them to go to school, work, & maintain family ties.
P.s. I'm exhausted!
It's too awful to think of the storm so Ii turned to the poet:
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
It's kind of unreal to have two storms like Helene & Milton hit less than two weeks apart. I don't get how so many people in Florida still can't see climate change in what's going on. And will be begging the government for help while rejecting its legitimacy.
Lefty's new place to sleep is behind us at the top of the bed in a little trough. You can barely see him in this photo: a black lump when his eyes are closed. Nonetheless, I like this photo & how sweet that little monster can be. He bites me a lot when I'm sitting at the table, where the chance of me responding with food is pretty good, but in bed he's all snuggles.
Nature is very unforgiving. If you destroy nature, it will destroy you.
~ Wangari Maathai, Kenyan activist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Clearer by the day, no?
Hearing the shofar is a requirement of Rosh Hashanah; I'm one of the shofar blowers at my synagogue. Usually I spend a lot of time leading up to the holiday studying the laws and meanings. I plan to think about one thing or another but when I'm actually blowing it all falls out of my head. This year I didn't have anything planned. Then the rabbi talked about it as a siren, what her friends in Jerusalem were hearing as a warning to get to their safe houses. A wake-up call to all of us to examine our lives. And I was filled with rage and defiance. Antisemites: hear this! God: hear this! Many years I feel like I'm carrying the congregation's prayers to heaven. This year I was punching my way through the trouble, hate, disregard.
Wait, we're doing the whole thing again? Why? In case we were inattentive for a moment here & there?
OK, I'm in.
I suppose.
Come for the medieval liturgical poetry, stay for the sound of the shofar!
All Jewish holidays run sundown to sundown. Tonight is the beginning of the year 5785: Rosh Hashanah, New Year's. Not the party hat-champagne holiday of December 31, Jews reflect on the past year and how they will do better in the coming one. Tikkun olam, repairing the world, is an essential component of that. This year it's been difficult to prepare, but maybe that's always true.
I've always thought it was kind of a ripoff that of our solar system's 293 moons, Saturn has 146, Jupiter 75, even Mars has 2, teeny little not-even-always-a-planet Pluto has five, and we've got... one. One measly moon. So I'm excited that right now, & until November 25 (don't you love that they already know when the breakup will occur?), we've got a second moon. Or to be more exact, "a mini-moon" that's 33 feet long and needs a professional telescope to be seen. Still! Could be the start of something big!
And it is: we're getting an asteroid in 2029 that can be seen by the naked eye.
(If that link doesn't work, search for an article in The Washington Post called "For 57 days this fall, Earth will have a second moon.")
Well, how about that! There are two quotes from me on a website of quotes by women:
"He began to like baseball / when he found someone / who knew less about it than he did."
Elinor Nauen,
"How Hans Became an American," in Elinor Nauen, ed., Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend (1994)
"... baseball is played on the fields of the imagination as much as on the diamond ..."
Elinor Nauen,
in Elinor Nauen, ed., Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend (1994)
I don't remember how I found this, even though it was only a minute ago. You look for one thing, you find something else, I suppose.
When I was first going out with Johnny, I couldn't believe he pronounced th- words without the h. Through was true, thing was ting. It sounded so ignorant to my midwestern ear. I gave him a hard time about it & eventually he flew right. Then I met his immigrant mother & realized it wasn't a mistake, it was Irish. Now he swings between both pronunciations. If he's awake it's more likely to be through & half asleep, true. And now I'm charmed by that throwback to his roots. I'm telling everyone else because I don't want to make him self-conscious again.
When someone uses that phrase approvingly, I assume they're ignorant & don't know how to evaluate information. Today I was having a nice conversation at the laundromat with a man about my age who is a hospice nurse for indigent patients. He disparaged tRump in a way that felt cozy: we're on the same page, I figured. I said something about people who "do their own research" are usually muddled in their thinking. He kind of rolled over the end of my sentence & said that's why he is voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. "I've been antiwar my whole life," he said. I said if it doesn't matter to you personally, please vote on behalf of women & those who. "That's why I'm voting for Stein."
Does he think people who support Harris (or tRump, for that matter) are PRO-war? Does he think a President Stein could magically bring about peace in Europe or the Middle East? To me that sounds like a dreamy adolescent: War is bad for children & other living things. Right, bub, no one disagrees. But: Putin. Hamas. Taliban.
I realize this account of the conversation is likewise a little muddled. A protest vote is fine in New York but does he, & others on his train, not remember that Nader voters put Bush in the White House?
My building, the Ezra Pound aka "The Pound," has been home to a lot of artists over the years. Hearing Rachelle play last week at City Winery belatedly reminds me that I first met her when she moved into The Pound We hit it off right away. It was shortly before her 30th birthday because practically the first week we met, she swept me up to go to her party at a friend's. Did I run into people I knew? Possibly ~ she knows everybody. The first time I heard her at a club, the lamented Rodeo Bar on 3rd Ave, she opened her mouth & my mouth fell open. Rachelle is not only a fantastic musician & songwriter, she's one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. We have had some of the most thoughtful & challenging conversations of my life.
Rachelle moved on from The Pound a good while ago but at least I can say I introduced her to her boyfriend, the equally brilliant Sensai Albie.
We've had a squab down in our pit. His twin (both all black) died a couple of weeks ago. Not sure why ~ I think he conked his head on a pipe. The parents (presumably) were around & then they weren't. My little guy has been hiding behind a pipe, seemingly abandoned and very timid. I have spent the last couple of days talking to him/her & saw when I was recognized & less frightening. Did he wait to fly away for me to see? (I know, I know.) He beat his wings awkwardly, flew lumpily a yard or two, & was gone.
I've always had luck with money.
Sometimes spectacularly, like the time I found 19 $100 bills lying on the ground.
Other times inexplicably, like getting my taxi to the airport refunded by Delta when a flight was canceled, while someone I know paid $1,200 for hotel & car rental when his flight was diverted to Boston, & got a $100 credit with the airline.
Yesterday I got a check for $25 (luck but not lottery luck!) from Mt Sinai, as a "refund to [my] account." I have no idea what it's for but whoever gets money back from a doctor, hospital or health insurance, at least not without kicking, screaming, & crying?
I ain't a boy, no, I'm a man.
~ Bruce Springsteen, "Promised Land"
For a long time I thought he was saying, "I'm not a poet, no I'm a man" & I was like, hey!
Happy 75th birthday to the Boss!
And the weather got the message. That crushing heat is gone & it's the bright breezy coolness that will hold me till we make it the only season that really matters. And this year I'm going to Swedish Lapland in December, so my chance of seeing snow should be pretty good.
Between 1933 & 1939, hundreds of laws, decrees, guidelines, and regulations increasingly restricted the civil and human rights of Jews in Germany. My dad, who was born in 1906, finally left Berlin in January of 1939. What was the last straw. It's the frog in the pot, right? The temperature gets a little more uncomfortable but it's not quite time to bolt, is it? Until, for millions of people, it was too late. I'm thinking about my father and I'm thinking about a situation I'm in that feels similar (although nothing to do with being Jewish) - things get a little worse & a little worse but there are still reasons to stay.Or are there? It's certainly a more muddled view from the middle. I understand better why people didn't get out of Europe earlier ~ it's hard to pack up & leave, will it be better elsewhere, I still have 6 months on my lease, my kid wants to finish the schoolyear, my health club membership is ....And the frog is boiled without knowing it.