Cloister Commentary, Day 324: Books for Groceries

Yesterday was a long march to a disappointing Super Bowl. Mom is a big Patrick Mahomes fan but it was not a good evening to be that (though he did prove tough). In other sports news, I finally had a chance to watch Luka Garza play on the tube, and that, too, was underwhelming.

While visiting here, I bought groceries and dinner for us, and Mom was concerned about paying me back. I told her that wasn’t necessary, but we worked out a deal. She “bought” me some books for about the same amount, thus allowing me once again to get around violating my resolution (which I actually violated the day before–see Commentary 323). I know you’re on tenterhooks needing to know what tomes I chose: U. S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s new anthology of Native Nations poetry, Drs. Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha Blain’s “community history” of African America (titled 400 Souls), and New York Times columnist Charles Blow’s new book The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto.

I also researched ways I can get Nicole and myself vaccinated against COVID-19 since, as Missouri teachers, and according to state leadership, we are not considered in urgent need. Governor Deputy Dawg: friend of public education.

Streaming for Strivers:

Bird lives. As does Black excellence.

Cloister Commentary, Day 323: Wally’s World of Books

Headed out in the morning to drop off Mom’s recycling, grab pre-Super Bowl groceries, and swing by Wal-Mart for some meds I left in Columbia. I do not mean to sound condescending or snide–though I’ve never quite been hopeful, I have been cruising Wally’s book section for many, many years–but I was stunned, then happy to see Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist and Robin DeAngelo’s White Fragility displayed right next to Bill O’Reilly’s new Killing Trees. I grabbed a copy simply to mark the auspicious occasion, then remembered my resolution to refrain from buying books this year (and just read what I have)–then came back five hours later and bought it anyway. (Yes, I was masked as were most of the customers.)

Viewing: Mom and I watched Mizzou’s cage squad temporarily crush the Crimson Tide, then almost cough up a loss. Later, we looked for a series we hadn’t tried, and, remembering friends’ recommendations, sampled Peaky Blinders. Is watching three straight episodes “sampling”? I don’t know about Mom, but I’m in. Now to convince Nicole….

Ultra-cold weather’s moving in. Winter and mourning are a devastating mix, but we are fighting through it. We talked through some strategies and it made a difference. Jigsaw puzzles, books, hardwood and historical dramas did, too.

Streaming for Strivers:

Wisdom of the elders. A classic Black history document.

Cloister Commentary, Day 322: Merging

The past two days have been a bit of a whirlwind. Fortunately, I returned from my sleep study in time to have a breakfast of black bean and salsa tortillas (courtesy of the Tortilleria El Patron group) with Nicole before she took off for work. I did some house-tidying, buzzed over and renewed my drivers license (the Real ID renewal went relatively smoothly, but I damn near flunked the vision test–I only wear readers!), made some appointments for a couple felines at the vet, finished a book…then hit the road back to Monett again. I’m going to spend a few more days with Mom and watch the Super Bore with her–and with luck dodge any bad weather. Unfortunately, I bustled out without my backpack–how will I survive without my styling mousse, my new copy of The Week, and my just-found-after-weeks-missing bamboo toothbrush?

Listened to more late-Columbia-period Billie Holiday on the drive back and finally satisfied my Rascals craving that must not have been too intense since I kept forgetting it–but damn, that group was good! I can listen to “Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore” on repeat for an hour–a long-time favorite. Also, I deeply enjoyed (as always) the greatest album of the most dissonantly catchy indie rock band of all-time: Archers of Loaf’s Vee Vee. A dude who should have already changed lanes to let me in off the Highway 5 off-ramp to I-44 STOPPED COLD on the interstate to let me in AS I REACHED THE VERY END OF THE RAMP AFTER I’D ALREADY STOPPED. He and probably I are lucky to be alive.

My mom and I had her quick and delicious recipe of Parmesan chicken (plus peas and roasted Rosemary potatos), then suffered through the very bad opening episode of Netflix’s Firefly Lane (Mom says read the book). We switched to the Nets – Raptors game to witness Kevin Durant removed from the bench due to contact tracing and NBA health protocols and see my observation that Brooklyn should never have traded Jarrett Allen further validated.

I then did the impossible: I slept nine hours.

Streaming for Strivers:

I’m not sure what’s up with the thumbnail, but I tell you what–take a chance and click to hear one of the greatest compilations of African music ever released.

Cloister Commentary, Day 321: Have Mercy!

Drove back to Columbia. I tell you what: the album Have Moicy! by The Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffrey Fredericks & The Clamtones, and Michael Hurley is inexhaustible. Hilarious, cosmic, randy, catchy, subversive, sneaky, utterly original, it might just change your life. It changes mine at least a little every time I listen to it.

Had a reunion with Nicole and our feline falanx. I’d been gone for a several days, and I reallllly missed ’em. Unfortunately, we could only catch up for a few hours, because I…

Did an in-patient sleep study. I felt like a kind of inverted Hellraiser. Didn’t sleep that great–I’m a side-sleeper and couldn’t hack back-sleeping more than half the night; the CPap took some getting used to; my tennis elbow flared up–but the technician (known to her peers as “T”) was from Clarksdale and we chatted about hot tamales, Super Chikan and T’s late uncle Razor Blade, and the difference between here and there. She did a great job working with me and getting me over the rough spots. Now? More results to wait on!

Streaming for Strivers:

A Black history monument in jazz.

Cloister Commentary, Day 320: Burgers

A quiet day, but that was good. Mom and I got Sonic cheeseburgers for lunch–my first burger in a long time–and though it and the tater tots were delicious, I can still feel that sucker sitting in my guts.

I continued dawdling my way through the great Charles Portis’ wild satire Masters of Atlantis. One critic called it what Twain would have been doing had he been alive in the latter half of the 20th century, and that’s spot on. I’d also call it “L. Ron Hubbard filtered through The Three Stooges.”

We were visited by Jim and Melissa Hague, who brought us pizza and mini-bundt cakes. Jim talked voluminously about his stock and advisory ventures and we mostly listened (truthfully, I asked him about GameStop and learned much from his answer).

After they left, we watched the Netflix documentary Crip Camp–you should, too. It was my second viewing and I was inspired even more powerfully this time around.

Tomorrow night: sleep study at Boone Hospital.

Streaming for Strivers:

You can hear much Black history in this album’s grooves.

Cloister Commentary, Day 319: It Was a Good Day

It was a good day, and that’s saying something. It started with a mild disappointment–because Springfield didn’t ship Monett’s hospital enough doses, Mom couldn’t get vaccinated (she is rescheduled for Friday)–but then I drove her to our old hometown of Carthage to visit with some of her best friends (at distance, masked, plus most of them had already been vaccinated). We visited happily for around three hours, and the host, Sunny Michel (my childhood friend Sherri Marney’s mom) laid out a terrific lunch spread for us. I love sitting back and listening to their generation chat, but I actually found some space to talk: I had forgotten that Kay Vaughan once taught at my elementary, Columbian, and actually knew most of my grade school teachers–including a really, really, really bad one who indirectly caused me to become a teacher. I told a few stories none of them had heard….

Mom likes basketball, so we spent the evening watching a ripping good tussle between the Brooklyn Nets and the Los Angeles Clippers.

Streaming for Strivers:

A powerful early American Black (Musical) History lineup to dive into.

Cloister Commentary, Day 318: This is The Break

For the first month in I’m not sure how long–many, many years–I didn’t buy a single CD, vinyl record, or download. I don’t really feel like I cheated myself; if anything, I didn’t contribute my share to gifted musicians. I’m going to keep going with this resolution. Also, I only bought four books: three digital Virginia Woolfs for a total of five bucks and Brian Coleman’s Check the Technique, Volume 2, which our libraries don’t have and which doesn’t exist in digital form. Self-abnegation is the bomb!

My mom Jane has been due for a break. Her husband died suddenly midsummer and during a pandemic; they’d been married almost 61 years, and had lived together in the same house for 40. In November, she fell when a strong wind caught her umbrella as she went out to get the paper and suffered a rotator cuff tear; the injury worsened to the extent she couldn’t lift either arm more than a foot, couldn’t sleep in a bed (only a chair), and felt such pain she was frequently reduced to tears. Her surgery to repair the tear was scheduled for 6:15 a.m. yesterday, and she was filled with anxiety about its prospects. However, she’d demonstrated as we sat drinking coffee that she could lift both arms, and when I looked surprised, she said she wasn’t feeling pain at all. Then, as she was being prepped for the surgery and the nurse asked her to rate her shoulder pain from zero to 10, she said zero: “I haven’t felt pain in several weeks.” This I didn’t know–and I began quietly freaking out about the procedure: was it necessary? As I was messaging my brother to share my concern, the surgeon arrived, introduced himself, and, after having flipped through Mom’s chart, asked her, “Do we need to do this surgery? I like to operate to relieve pain, not cause it.”

15 minutes later, with the dawn light still not peeking through, we were back at the house, trying to wrap our heads around a new reality of no sling, no extreme pain and meds, no six-week rehab and PT. That break had arrived.

And she got her $600 gummint check in the mail! Note: I’m no fool–I’m grateful and happy for her, but I’m still holding my breath.

Special thanks to my “niece” Madison Dickens for constant health professional wisdom and reinforcement. Bow to your school nurses today for me and my mom if you get a chance.

Streaming for Strivers:

Black History Month Heads-Up, Hip Hop Division.

Cloister Commentary, Day 317: Road Catalysts

My day got off to a great start. Nicole and I did some very early shopping for essentials then snagged a half-dozen bagels at Goldie’s with which to finish off our smoked sockeye salmon. I’m tellin’ you, if you’re in Columbia, Missouri, and you love bagels, hit ’em up.

I hit the road late morning to visit my mom, get her to a surgical procedure, and help her during recovery (that procedure was canceled–more on that tomorrow). The day was cold and gray, so I needed serious musical fuel to power me for the three-plus-hour drive. Few rock and roll bands catalyze me like Dead Moon and Wussy. Who are your musical catalysts?

My mom and I watched Netflix’s The Dig (Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan on point, plus the story and camerawork are fascinating) and most of All Creatures Great and Small–Mom’s surgery was scheduled for 6:15 a.m., so we retired early.

Streaming for Strivers:

Black History Month is every month, because it’s everyone’s history. I always celebrate it to the best of my ability, and largely through music. Don’t know J. B. Lenoir? I invite you to click.

Cloister Commentary, Day 316: Shawn, Out of the Blue

I was sitting at the table having coffee when, out of the blue, my friend from childhood, Shawn Baugh, lit up my phone. His first question? “What do you think of this political situation?” These days, such a query via telecom might cause one to have a sudden outage, but we’ve known each other for almost 50 years, so we pitched right in. We would seem to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but as our highly enjoyable discussion revealed, we have much in common regarding what we’d like to see fixed. We also laughed a lot about the absurdities of life, found ourselves remembering the world of our youth, and pondered our future road as oldsters. Neither of us are entirely sure we are excited to see what happens during the next 25 years, but this quote from Shawn sums up both our attitudes: “I love life.” He always has! And so have I, and I’m going to pursue measures to sustain that philosophy. That call was a great boost for my day.

Elsewhere, Nicole and I drove to the Columbia Farmers Market and picked up our usual weekend haul from Pasta La Fata, Uprise Bakery, and Happy Hollow Farm. I as usual picked the wrong basketball games to half-watch (Tide v. Sooners, Auburn v. Baylor) and mopped up a basement leak; Nicole made red beans and rice and some stir-fry to go with the smoked sockeye salmon we ordered from Sea Bear–I could almost have eaten the whole filet!

Movie Night: we finally watched Netflix’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s Horatio Alger-goes-to-India / Bildungsroman from Hell novel The White Tiger. The director is Rahmin Bahraini, one of our top five faves. Nicole’s side-eye review: “This is intense.”

Streaming for Strivers:

Mmmm…Goldie’s Bagels!

Cloister Commentary, Day 315: Three Highlights

One of yesterday’s highlights was finishing Hubert Selby, Jr.’s blazing Requiem for a Dream. I almost re-watched the film adaptation, but ended up deeming it a bit too much, so I watched the first special episode of Euphoria instead–which tied right in. One of the best post-COVID productions I’ve seen.

Another was participating in a post and thread started by Alyssa O’Day, whom I taught when she was a 6th grader and when she was a senior. She has always been sharp, spirited, and fearless, and we were discussing the difficulty of convincing some folks (particularly elders) that they’d demonstrably drunk the Kool-Aid (recalling that a former colleague once thought that phrase was an occupational compliment, I must clarify that IT IS NOT). We did not solve that problem, but I thoroughly enjoyed the attempt.

The capper was a FaceTime with our dear friends Kenny and Gwen Wright, of Helena, Alabama. We talked about politics, pets, and pain, as well as sports, sons, and salmon. I wish they lived next door.

Streaming for Survivors:

A trailblazer who has departed too early.