Cloister Commentary, Day 51: Difficult and Risky

Nicole planted flowers, and I was unsuccessful in trying to install a Wi-Fi adapter on her school computer. I did finish reading a book and write a little bit about Little Richard, who passed. I worry Jerry Lee Lewis will not survive the pandemic.

Driving to the bank and a curbside restaurant pickup and back, we speculated nerve-wrackingly about what the fall semester at our schools will look like. None of the possibilities look anything less than difficult and risky. The speculation was ended temporarily by margaritas and a Dave Chappelle stand-up special.

The day marked our 30th year together, and I’m happy to report we still have fun hanging out even if it isn’t fireworks, beaches, Ferris wheels, and party buses every day. We can be next to each other, content in silence, and address the routines and rituals with commitment and sometimes a zen-like pleasure. Even when sifting kitty litter and picking up dog poop.

I just realized that yesterday I didn’t write about the day before, which is what I do with these–I got excited by our anniversary and forgot. Friday, May 8, will hereafter be known as “The Day ‘Cloister Commentary’ Went Dark.” I already can barely remember what we did, so I suspect, dear reader, you didn’t miss much.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

Happy Mother’s Day. Behold the humble mastery of one of American music’s most vaunted mothers.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR2bDTx8ZH96h8Xlhnr79xj-ix24sAxFySgPcqOVXEeJrTRhnoZlCs1GObo&v=eoldgb1zBsw&feature=youtu.be

Cloister Commentary, Day 50: The Succor and Sustenance Awards, Iteration I

I inadvertently began this journal on Nicole’s and my 28th wedding anniversary. Halfway to 100, at which point I expect to still be commentin’, I arrive at the 30th anniversary of our goin’ steady. We’d been very good friends for a couple weeks, I was licking my wounds from having been officiously dumped, and I hollered at her one day about going to show with me (the Coctails, Murphy’s, Sprangfield, MO). She’d really been fun and funny, which was helping me heal, and she had stellar taste in music and books, so I stopped by Record Center to say hi to ol’ Mark Vaugine and buy her a present in gratitude (a cassette of Rosetta Tharpe’s Decca label Gospel Train, Volume 1). We met at the show, that band was lively, she loved the gift, we were laughing our butts off–and I just stopped at one point and asked her, “Are we going out?” Her answer: “I guess so!” You know the rest. I hope we have 30 more in the tank!

The 1st Cloister Commentary Succor and Sustenance Awards (links in comments):

Best Anti-COVID-Blues Album: Carmen McRae, The Great American Songbook

Best Anti-COVID-Blues Movie: Duck Soup (“Hail, Hail, Freedonia” indeed….)

Best Anti-COVID-Blues Show: What We Do in The Shadows (I have a crush on Nadja–sorry, Nicole!)

Best Anti-COVID-Blues Book (three-way tie): Élmer Mendoza, The Acid Test; Fernanda Melchor, Hurricane Season; Martin Duberman, Stonewall

Best Anti-COVID-Blues Curbside Grub: Beet Box

Best Anti-COVID-Blues TV Journalist: Don Lemon (nailed it, dude)

Next edition in 50 days. Have a great weekend if weekends still have definition for you!

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

This isn’t exactly the recording I mentioned above, but it will well and truly suffice. I know Bob Bilyeu will agree!

Cloister Commentary, Day 49: Beating Death in Life

Seven weeks. First, a poem for me, you, and us. I gave it to my seniors every year in May at Hickman, and I was not surprised to see it circulating yesterday:

“The Laughing Heart,” by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

As Tom Waits said simply after reading it aloud once on camera, and being briefly stunned, “That’s a beauty.”

Speaking of seniors in May, Nicole and I have kept the memory of her mother Lyndaalive every spring by honoring two 12th graders who are on a career track for nursing with a $250 scholarship a piece. We are not currently able to meet this year’s honorees in person, but those were two checks it felt good to write. We have to keep their names under our hats til Monday.

In the late afternoon, we Zoomed with a few friends who, like us, are veterans of one of Missouri’s finest-ever movie rental palaces, 9th Street Video. We moonlighted there for several years from the time it opened in ’92 (I think) and worked at least one shift a year there for over a decade. I’ve never worked anywhere with smarter and funnier fellow employees. Janet Marsh and Jennifer Cole (the only participants I can tag), let’s do it again.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

Few musical genres make me lighter at heart than calypso. See what it does for you!

Cloister Commentary, Day 46: VHS Delivery

What a lower-case “d” day.

Chilly wind and rain, and clouds keeping most of the day dark. Doubts just clinging: about endurance, about adaptability, about sustenance, about work and when play will return, about the country’s future and our group decisions. Fatigue accompanying a return to earth after a relatively exhilarating weekend. Written communication arrived from Andy Cigarettes, and depression loomed so low to our ground we’ve yet to open it.

This Covid-19 stuff is neither easy on the mind, nor the body, nor the soul.

Some admittedly temporary but very effective cures were available to Nicole and me down in our art vault, and we reached for them. Funny, we hadn’t reached for these in long old while: VHS copies of the first Austin Powers movie and Duck Soup. You know, those suckers were supposed to really degrade over time, but the video quality of these was pretty fab, and of course the content instantly lifted our spirits. The former film still has some years to go to prove itself, but I think we can agree The Marx Brothers are capital “E” Eternal. Those movies and mango popsicles did the trick in the nick.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

Let’s celebrate another iconic music birthday, shall we? Today will be better, if this conjurer does his magic.

Cloister Commentary, Day 43: Parasite Plays Be Damned!

Friday was Game Night! Nicole loves when we play games because she routinely kicks my ass. However, this time she claimed minor reluctance because of her supposedly inferior vocabulary, as we had chosen Scrabble, which we hadn’t played since Christmas ’12, when we spread out the board at her mom Lynda Jo’s kitchen table. I chuckled evilly, anticipating domination.

She poured a Pinot, I cracked open a Bud and backed it with a finger of Four Roses, and it was on. After I slaughtered her by over 100 points in Round 1, I foolishly assumed my losing streak was over, but–alas–I got hustled. Despite my frequent “parasite plays” (adding -s or -ed to high-value words she’d already laid out), she took the last two rounds, killing me in the final one by setting up a three-letter word right where I was going to rack up a 36-point triple word score on my next turn. RAT FARTS!!!! Next time, by Gawd, we’re playing Rook!

My pain was assuaged throughout not only by the beer ‘n’ bourbon, but also, of course, by the music: The Ramones’ classic It’s Alive!, an archival Professor Longhair tribute concert broadcast on WWOZ (from ’74, with Benny Spellman, The Meters, Earl King, Dr. John, The Wild Magnolias, and Fess himself), and two jaw-droppers. Bonnie Raitt’s Give It Up has realllllly grown for me over time (maybe it’s me who’s grown): absolutely stunning singing and playing, spot-on song selection, and a powerful, natural, sexy feminist persona (is that ok?). And…Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story? That album makes our eyes mist up every time we play it–mostly from wonder as we marvel at the humanity it expresses so vividly, but also because ol’ Rodney was one of Nicole’s mom’s favorites. Has there ever been a one-two punch to the heart like “Maggie May” and “Mandolin Wind”? And how’d you like to just chuck talent (or is it genius) like that?

We also had a Facebook drop-in by an old high school friend of mine, Jim Mac. We’ve only seen each other a few times over the years, but he never fails to make a strong impression on us. He’s smart, funny, observant and soulful, and the Scrabble memory he shared was very evocative. I hope we are able to see him in person soon, but I believe our 40th high school reunion will likely be virtual if it occurs at all. I also enjoyed several Facebook appearances from former students who made me miss full-on teaching even more than I already do, but also reassured me that my existence has not been in vain.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

Prelude to Scrabble. Did anyone else out there see the Furs at Stephens College in ’82, on the Forever Now tour? I love this band.

Cloister Commentary, Day 42: Weather Reps

One of our shelter rituals has been watching the local and national news at 5 and 5:30. Alas, to that we must put a stop. After 30 minutes of local “coverage’ during which we saw the same advertisement three times, had the weather POUNDED into our brains via four reps–I got it the effin’ first time, people–and consumed maybe 30 seconds of actual information during the last 10 minutes of the program, WE CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I assure you, enough vital news (not even counting pandemic stuff and the beginning of campaign feces-flinging) is out there to fill 60 MINUTES. I’m not naive; I know the TV exists to sell, that it’s the “shows” that support the ads, not the other way around. But still. What a waste. We can always use more time for books and music, I guess.

Ok, then. Perhaps in response to this frustration, Nicole and I jumped in the car and just drove: out to her workplace, Battle High School, past her mom Lynda’s old house, down 63 to the AC exit, up Providence to downtown (sad to see Lucky’s lights still on but no cars in the lot), through the Stephens College campus (“Look! There’s where I park! And there’s the library window I’d jump out of in an emergency!”), onto I-70 and across the Missouri River bridge, then back home, the last 20 minutes accompanied by a mellow but vivid sunset. Soundtrack: Novo Baianos’ Acabou Chorare (a late-Tropicalia masterpiece from Brazil), Thelonious Monk Trio (if you don’t know Monk’s brilliance, a great starting point), and Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus. It was a redemptive little trip, but it left us sad to think we have no clue when or where we will actually be able travel to see people and places.

A ritual we are practicing that I’ve forgotten to mention is periodically ordering something neat to give ourselves something to look forward to arriving. I think we’ve made four Powell’s Books orders, I have some Soul Jazz-labelmusic coming from the UK, and Nicole got a box of nice stuff (soap, incense, a Shiva scarf, and a cone incense diffuser) from Nag Champa. We are fortunate to have leisure capital to spend, but at least we are spending it with quality merchants and avoiding Amazon like the plague during the plague.

Still keeping your eye on the ball regarding our Republican “legislators”‘s ongoing attempt to subvert democracy and overturn Clean Missouri while we’re distracted? Creeps. Not much noise about THAT at all on the TV news. Cheating in plain sight is the new political normal.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

Curious about that Novo Baianos record? Here.

Cloister Commentary, Day 41: In Dreams

Dreaming strangely during this crisis? Me, too. My body literally forced me to take a nap yesterday–rare for me in almost any case–and, even rarer, I dreamed during it. In this dream, I was napping (that’s how much I needed one, I guess) on the couch in our front room when someone I know who shouldn’t ever be in our house emerged happily from the basement. This awakened me (in the dream),and, feeling like I’d swallowed three muscle relaxants, I moaned, “What are you doing here?” The individual grinned and said, “Your dad said I could fix it.” From the TV room, my dad yelled, “Yep. I did.” I got up from the couch as Nicole walked into the room, and I told her, “Let’s go.” We exited the house, got in the car (I chose to drive, which I usually don’t), turned to Nicole and said, “I’m too out of it to drive,” and proceeded to back out of the driveway onto Phyllis and continue backing the half-block toward Garth. Nicole said, “You’re driving backwards and you’re not using the rear view.” I looked at her, nodded, braked, put the car in drive, checked the rear view before accelerating forward–and the mirror was opaque. Then I woke up, though it took me at least an hour to do so fully.

Turns out COVID-19 is influencing many folks’ dreams. According to experts, we dream frequently of being chased, but in this mess’s case we may be deeply unsure of what. In dreams, we may be being communicated solutions to present conflicts by our subconscious. I looked further into it, and happened upon both an interesting article about the phenomenon and a blogger’s project in logging our dreams as we find our way through this pandemic labyrinth.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

Happy International Jazz Day!

Cloister Commentary, Day 39: Contempt

I know I’m not alone.

Yesterday, I watched the governor of Georgia address a member of the media, who’d asked him a simple, relevant, and necessary question, with absolute contempt. Once again, I was put in a very frustrating position: my impulse was to want to see this boor publicly disgraced, at the very least chastened into silence, but for that to happen, he would need to be very, very publicly wrong, which would mean…bodies stacked like cordwood. That’s the last thing I want, so that leaves me hoping the boor is correct. I’m really tired of feeling this way, deep in the pit of my stomach. Contempt, militant ignorance, bloviation, bristling insecurity, crudeness–and the blatant inability to accept and respond, intelligently and knowledgeably, to criticism: these have always been the hallmarks of the small man. They can’t also be the hallmarks of our leadership, can they?

I know this is probably weak-minded, but who liked these kinds of humans in high school? Who enjoys them as bosses? Who likes them between their legs?

Ok, breathe.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

Feels appropriate.

Cloister Commentary, Day 38: Our Happy Hollow

Even though we don’t really have a “family” in-house (well…pets), we eat at the table on a regular basis. We almost–almost–did so thrice yesterday; the oatmeal came off the stove right as “CBS Sunday Morning” came on in the living room and we like to watch that live (Note: I am not a fruit eater but Nicole has seduced me into enjoying blackberries, raspberries, and bananas in my hot cereal–one fringe benefit of sheltering). But lunch and dinner were magnificent efforts by the chef: vegetarian enchiladas made with Tortilleria El Patron‘s tortillas as well as Happy Hollow Farm‘s purple radishes and sweet potatoes (of which I’m not normally a fan unless they’re in a pie) for the former, her long-time staple and specialty peanut butter curry for the latter. The windows were open all day, the music was flowing, and no neighbors were screaming at each other.

I understand it’s rather bourgeois to linger too long over food (Luis Buñuel made that point powerfully), but a) I may actually be rather bourgeois–more so than I’d prefer–and b) home-cooked meals have been one of the most sustaining rituals of this mess, and I’m fortunate to live with someone who cooks with love, skill, and imagination. For the record, I always and zen-happily wash and dry the dishes promptly; I seldom use the dishwasher, but as a mercy to my chapped hands and wrists, since the thing began I’ve leaned on it a bit. My goal since we moved in together has been to never allow her near a stacked sink, and to assure her every implement’s clean for her to make as big a culinary mess as she needs to. I’m not very romantic, but those are my dozen roses, I suppose.

I dug Albert Camus’ The Plague out of the basement library in the early evening. How cliché at this point, I know, but that paperback has been with me (physically and spiritually) longer than most of the books in the house. The novel was required reading for a fantastic “Philosophy and Literature” class I took as a senior at what was then Southwest Missouri State, and the prof was superb. I can’t remember his name, but he had long gray hair, a mustache, and muttonchops, and always sported the same cigarette-burned corduroy jacket–Clay Thomas, you recall him, by chance? The Stranger and “The Myth of Sisyphus” were splashier reads, but The Plague seemed much more adaptable to the lived life of a 21-year-old, and warmer (if that makes sense). Time for a re-read, even if (maybe especially because) millions of other humans are also picking it up. I encourage you to, as well; there’s more than one plague we’re dealing with, after all, and this book will help.

The Plague

Oh, and Tux finally used his $100 house after many months (including a fall and winter) of turning up his pink nose! Instead, he’s turning his nose up at the lunch that he did not eat at our table.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

This may not actually be the greatest jazz concert of all time, but with Bird on sax, Diz on trumpet, Bud on piano, Max on drums, and Mingus on bass, it is mos def no disgrace.

Cloister Commentary, Day 37: So Long, Flo

We said a somber farewell to Nicole’s Grandma Florence Martinez, who passed away at the age of 95 yesterday. She was a strong, smiling presence in her kids’ and grandkids’ lives, and she will be sorely missed. Florence had a mischievous smile and eye-sparkle she would frequently flash that will last forever in my mind’s eye. I try to confront this mess we’re in with an even disposition, but the stabbing way it has robbed humans at the arrival in their lives of birth and death is especially cruel, and makes me just want to loudly lose it a little bit. Adam, Chrisy, Angela, Big Joe and Little Joe, and Cathy, we’re with you in spirit if we can’t be in physical space.

The highlights of a stormy day were simple: Frenchy Treats‘ delicious macarons, which we purchased at the Columbia Farmers Market (they really have their operation together), and a revisiting of a movie we have loved forever, Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law. Did you know the title refers to a very close relationship, not an oppressed state? My interpretation is, you’re down with someone according to your own laws for a human relationship.

I also was very pleasantly surprised by feedback from two very amazing former students, Justin and Arianna. When you’re a teacher of hoarier vintage, who’s been away from large groups students of students for awhile, you can start picking at yourself, wondering if you’ve still got the knack and shouldn’t consider getting out before you overstay your acumen’s duration. For better or worse, you two, my hand’s still in the game thanks so much to your kind words.

I hate it when I forget to read. I didn’t even read the dang paper. I did read a student’s essay but that doesn’t quite count.

Used to be, the only time my nose ever itched was when my hands were in a soapy sink. Now, it itches every single time I really hadn’t ought to touch my face. I hereby dub this phenomenon “COVID nose.”

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

I’ve noticed on social media that this one of a kind album (even considered in this one of a kind artist’s oeuvre) has been landing in many friends’ lives lately. Perhaps it’s time for you to make its acquaintance if you haven’t already.