Cloister Commentary, Day 119.5: Splash, So Long

I have had a decent portion on my plate lately, so I was happy to hand a very healthy certified check over to good ol’ Sharon Dothage at Hickman for deposit into our account for remembering our departed friend George Frissell. My first experience managing a GoFundMe campaign was pretty positive, but also nerve-wracking. Would I do it again? Depends.

Thanks be to McKnight Tire for bringing my ’93 Ford Ranger (formerly known as a Splash until I had the evidence removed–didn’t quite go with my image) up to long-distance travel-speed. They have treated that vehicle lovingly for almost 30 years, and after the new owner has them put a set of tires on it, they shall see it no more, and will eventually meet my Chevy. I hope they get along.

How many hours in a day can you read? Providing my damn phone is buried somewhere, I can get seriously lost in a book, but I happened to have my nose in an in-demand book I’d checked out from the DBRL that was, um, five days overdue, so I had additional motivation. Finished it with time to spare, which I used to…read another book.

The dark side of the day was learning that 30 fellow Stephens employees lost their jobs. I’m pretty convinced the leadership did everything they could to prevent taking that measure, but COVID-19 gives no quarter. Had we done a much better job refusing any ourselves–say, starting in January–we’d be in a better place now. But more and more it is appearing we are in a hell we had a hand in making.

Random shout-out: I was delighted to see one of my favorite administrators and edumacational wizards, Dr. Andrew McCarthy, yesterday. Andy’s smart, dedicated, hard-working, funny, positive, patient, and nice. What else could one require in an educator?

Streaming for Strivers:

How ’bout some snap, crackle, and pop?

Cloister Commentary, Day 116: Just Being Still

A kind of quiet day in Mask Ordinance USA.

Riding back up to Columbia, we listened to the audiobook of Marjorie Spruill’s Divided We Stand. You’ve heard me mention it while enthusing about the Hulu series Mrs. America, for which it served as somewhat of a guidebook for the series’ writers. In it, Spruill makes a great case for the seeds of today’s paralyzing, aggravating, and flat-out miserable division having been planted by the ’70s struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment. While the book is enlightening, it does not serve to lift much pre-existing dread with which one might be grappling.

In other highlights, when we got home, I lay next to Nicole on our bed in the dark while she napped, just being still, conscious, and calm. It was very nice. Also, there was a cat on my chest.

Later, I had a peach popsicle and again fell asleep exactly for the key moment of Episode 8 of The Great. As always, I awakened right after the key moment.

I did not listen to any music, but I heard much of the following in my head.

Streaming for Strivers:

Thank you for the nudge, Michael Corcoran. It’d been awhile since I’d been down to Marlin, Texas.

Cloister Commentary, Day 55: The Thing with Feathers

Talked to my mom on the phone, and I am trying to sketch out a plan to safely visit her and Dad–I can barely remember when we last saw them in person. They’re 3.5 hours away, we’ll need to kennel the dog, and we feel an overnight stay is pushing it: we’re not putting anyone at unnecessary risk. Also, we’ll need to think out our distancing, dining, and rest stops very carefully in advance. It’s enough to break the brain. My dad’s also made me two much-needed record crates, so that just increases my desire to visit. Any advice or ideas? It seems like the masses are just relaxing and rolling out, but my mind and gut are telling me to hold steady. It’s enough to wake you up at 3 am.

We’ve been trying anything Jamestown’s Happy Hollow Farms has to offer. They deliver to Columbians via our Farmer’s Market. Our recent experiment, after devouring their purple radishes, was with black radishes. Damn. Talk about strong. VERY strong. Nicole soaked ’em in sugar water and vinegar to tone them down after we tried them raw and discovered their health benefits, and that helped, but, when we opened the container they’d been marinating in, we were tempted to look askance first at the dog, then at each other.

Hope is indeed the thing with feathers; every day the news seems to bring more proof. A step forward, three steps back, each a slap of insult, degradation, and smugness upside the head. But it was fun, on Hulu’s enlightening limited series Mrs. America, to see Phyllis Schlafly (played astonishingly by Kate Blanchett) get a pie in the face. Did it really happen? Yes, it did. See the link in the comments below. The only issue I have with the series–it’s really my issue–is it helps explain a bit of where we’re at right now, and while that’s helpful, that’s also somewhat depressing.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

NEVER depressing.

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.