Cloister Commentary, Day 132: Purply Passionate Pomp, for Hours

What it’s often like to live in the same space with me.

So, I was about to finish Maurice Waller’s lively biography of his father, the contagiously ebullient pianist, singer, songwriter, performer and human, Thomas “Fats” Waller, and had been stunned by the number of classic sessions on which he’d backed up other masters, particularly blues empress Albert Hunter. Hunter’s marvelous late recordings, made in her eighties after she retired from music and worked for years as a nurse, are hallowed in our house, but I realized I’d not heard (or not heard much of) her early material, specifically the stuff with Fats. Normally, I would blindly just buy such recordings, but I demonstrated unusual good sense and chose to stream them (honestly, I just couldn’t wait for a parcel to arrive).

So, as Nicole was trying to wake up and make peanut butter cookies, I ran Hunter’s Twenties records from my phone through our house stereo, at medium-loud volume–sometimes, you have to crank up early twentieth century music, and, like I sugggested, Hunter is vaunted enough in our abode, I didn’t feel the need to…touch base. However, and I’m bound to get some blowback on this assessment, Alberta’s youthful singing style was, shall we say, robust, full-throated, maybe occasionally a bit…purply passionate with just a thread of quasi-operatic pomp running through it, while in her eighties, singing mostly with her mind (and, with surprising frequency, from below the waist), she came off like a sly, wise, randy, and totally irresistible great-granny.

BUT: I was listening through the difference, to the players, keeping my ears pricked for Waller’s piano and pipe-organ (he considered the latter his first instrument) and the contributions of other masters (like Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet) who also backed her. I can concentrate right past even the most conspicuous noise. And I kept listening for a few hours–through Hunter’s complete Twenties output–while Nicole tried to get caught up with the news, struggled to take a quiet, meditative shower (the stereo volume was such that it infiltrated the rain room’s sanctity), and with eyebrows furrowed, gamely put herself together for the day.

Suddenly, she emerged in the hallway.

Nicole: “Who is this?”

Me, wary: “Uhhhhh, Alberta Hunter?”

Nicole, gently, but succinctly and firmly: “A little of this goes a long way.”

Me, snapping back to the world of other humans: “Yes. Indeed. It’s Buddy Guy’s birthday?”

Nicole: “That will suffice.”

Streaming for Strivers:

She wasn’t kidding.

Cloister Commentary, Day 131: Pass. Pass. Pass.

Haircut. Bloodwork. Colonoscopy. Pass. Pass. Pass. It’s the way that it is in a state that’s setting a new record every day.

Did some dropping off: the dog at The All Creatures Hotel, a humane trap at the Spay & Neuter Project. Did some picking up: some Everclear at, what is it, Be Best or Be Good or Be Well? Don’t worry about the latter; Nicole’s simply making her quarterly bottle of limoncello, which studies have shown ward off the ‘rona spell. Not really.

Would anyone like a free download of the new Bob Dylan album, which is quite good and I already have a copy of? Go to wearevinyl.com and enter the following code: X7M2QB6G7. It’s a pretty good pandemic record, as it faces up to mortality and history with a tight-lipped grin and an eye-twinkle. He’s our Ol’ Blue Eyes. (If the code doesn’t work, someone beat you to it. But don’t give up on it.)

Took two naps again today. Maybe it was the four-leaf strength cup of Twining’s I had before each. Maybe I’m malaised. Didn’t Paul McCartney write that one?

Streaming for Survivors:

We spent the evening with the Old Masters. Should you like to do the same, here.

Cloister Commentary, Day 130: I Got the Will…To TRY

I didn’t need as much effort as I’d thought, but I did will myself to have a better day. Better sleep and a less painful throat helped, but some yard work and basement maintenance were probably the kickers.

I am always perfectly content to ride as opposed to drive, so Nicole was surprised when she asked if she could drive Dad’s truck when we needed to run some errands and I said no. The power that surges through my being as I fire up the Silverado is addictive, and I feel more manly every time I’m behind its steering wheel. Seriously, though, I’ll “let” her drive next time.

I will have at least one of my usual four part-time jobs next semester. Stephens confirmed that I’ll be operating as a virtual-only writing tutor out of their library, and that I may be taking on some additional duties checking up on incoming freshmen as they deal with what can only be a weird educational campaign.

Our friend Susie gifted us with some blackberry moonshine from the lakes to help us through our recent tragedy, and Nicole had an inkling it would mix well with Maine Root Ginger Beer (the best!)–it’s a bit too sweet to drink neat. We each had a glass with some fresh sweet corn on the cob and a tomato and mayo sandwich, then we had another.

All evening, we listened to Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions’ classic ’60s and early ’70s recordings–not a bad way at all to lessen pandemic anxiety before hitting the sack.

Streaming for Strivers:

If you’re in the mode for Joe…

Cloister Commentary, Day 129: Snores

I snore. Sometimes so badly–especially if I sleep deeply–that my throat’s raw in the morning. Yesterday morning, morning was 3:30 a.m.; I’d already driven Nicole out, my uvula felt swollen to twice its normal size, and I was buzzing with anxiousness about ten imperatives. Got up, drank some ice-cold water, took an ibuprofen, drank a cup of coffee, tried to read, and performed a rarity, for me: I went back to sleep after I’d gotten up. Took a nap in the afternoon, too. Still didn’t feel all the way charged–maybe 73%–and even a Shakespeare’s veggie “Overeem Special” (double mushrooms, onions, pepper cheese, and green olives) didn’t help. Really, the only thing powering me through the day at all was a steady diet of stride and boogie woogie piano records, several of which I repeat-played.

All of my Stephens summer school students gained their freshman comp credit. A very bad research paper brought one kid in at 69.8%, a very narrow escape (a C- is required to pass). I do not know if I will have a class next semester, and, if I do, how I will have it.

We are without a show. Normally, I do not need escapes. Sometimes, I think I’m quite the opposite: I want to confront reality more fully, more specifically. But damn this summer, you know? So we sampled a couple we thought might delight, distract, and amuse us, Toast of London and Space Force. There’s nothing like watching a fruitlessly striving comedy produce barely a smile, and no outward laughter, especially twice in a row. On the plus side, the two episodes drove us out to the front room to read.

Today will be better. I am going to will it so.

Streaming for Survivors:

Finger-buster on the 88s. For Nicole.

Cloister Commentary, Day 127: Brontë and Basketball

My week hanging out with my mom is coming to a close (though I shall return soon). We’ve had as much fun as you can have in a pandemic, and I’ve witnessed her one-woman mask-making factory in action. Melissa Hague and Nicole have recently provided yards of raw materials that will keep the factory humming.

We capped the week with some Mexican food and an unusual evening of viewing: we split up Cary Fukunaga’s 2011 quietly intense adaptation of Jane Eyre with 90 minutes of an NBA preview, which Mom actually enjoyed and I was more impressed with than I’d anticipated. I thought I was well weaned off sports from three months of fasting, but after seeing what the league’s done to help its teams deal with COVID-19 and its players address social injustice? I’ll bite. And if you haven’t seen Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska circle each other in that great, brooding Brontë-take, please do so post-haste. ‘Twas my second viewing, and I had no regrets: in fact, one day I want to venture through Derbyshire, where it was filmed, as well as check out Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire.

Also, Mom had a dinner margarita poured for herself before I had done so for myself. I had secretly restocked provisions earlier in the day but she sniffed them out. You have to move quickly to beat me to that elixir. Funny, but I think my dinner idea was triggered by having listened to David Berman’s “Margaritas at the Mall” in the morning while I was futzing with my car stereo (see comments).

Streaming for Strivers:

It’s not a “full album,” but it’s about a half-hour of a great front man’s trademark get-up-and-get-at-it. He’s been to France, so you just dance, ok?

Cloister Commentary, Day 126: Earthseed Graphics

Took a long early-morning walk into the Monett countryside listening to Rolling Stone writer Joe Levy’s Spotify playlist, “Uprising 2020.” That was better than three shots of espresso, and lasted longer.

Nicole, Mom, and I Zoom every morning for 10 minutes or so before we get on with our days. Yesterday, though, we got pretty engaged in our subject matter and almost talked for an hour. And here I thought I was done with Zoom “classes” for a while. For myself, I think I just miss my wife a wee bit.

Graded the first wave of research papers that arrived from my summer school students: three As and two Bs, plus they had some zip to ’em. They aren’t due til Sunday night, but today’s authors are of the TCB variety.

Started two new books, a so-far nice bio of the contagiously joyful and mischievous jazz master Fats Waller (written by his son) and Duffy & Jennings’ second graphic novel adaptation of an Octavia Butler novel, Parable of the Sower. If any of my readers know that book, well–you’ve probably thought of it once or twice since March. The team has an adaptation of Parable of the Talents on the way.

My mind and body forced me to nap in the afternoon, but I was ready to go for a nice dinner with Mom and my chosen brother Greg Carlin. We spent a good three hours talking about Monett family trees, his health-wrestling, complicated dogs, and oblivious neighbors. As a lineman (not the football kind, the electrical kind), he interacts with a cross-section of the public in their home environments, but when he discusses certains folks’ unusual living habits, he is never mean nor does he consider himself superior to them. That’s the sign of a good man.

Streaming for Strivers:

For this instrumentalist, an album could not be better named. The band’s pretty talented as well.

Cloister Commentary, Day 125: Cat Herding Sheep

Only eight times this many days will be 1,000. February seems over a year in the past, but eight times this many seems like it could happen in a snap. Does that make any sense?

But for the grading of research papers, my Stephens summer school stint is over. I remember neurotically pacing back and forth, wondering if I should take the job on, then if I would like it, then if I would suck at Zoom–and it’s already over, and I’m in for next summer. If there is a next summer: what really sucks is that some valued colleagues at Stephens have lost their jobs so the institution can survive, and the mess we’re all in isn’t going to make continuance a snap.

I have a scarily-bearded cousin who’s more like an uncle named Jim Hague. He is a septuagenarian with the motor of a five-year-old (what age has the highest-running motor?), and yesterday he showed up to finish repairing Dad’s old riding lawnmower. This particular job has been an obsession with him, and he toiled in the ninety degree heat from 1 p.m. to about 7 p.m. He was so desperate to complete the task that he asked me to help him, which is akin to asking a cat to herd sheep. I didn’t break anything, got my hands dirty (it was FUN!), and test-drove the thing without impaling it on the sweetgum tree. Jim and I don’t agree on very much, but no one has been more helpful in the aftermath of my father’s passing. For awhile, I was worried I might have another relative’s demise on my hands, but after Mom hosed him down and he ate some cookies, he was good as new.

I despise few things more than wasting food–I am a plate-cleaner to the manor born–but I was soundly defeated at dinner. I decided to give Mom a break from having to feed me and grabbed some curbside grub at The Southern Standard in Monett, but the delicious four-piece fried catfish plate I ordered was not accurately described on the restaurant’s menu: I double-checked, but nowhere did it read “For two.” Nor did it read “jumbo-sized catfish slabs.” My jaws creaked to a screeching halt at 3.5 slabs, I left a swamp of slaw on the plate, then staggered out of the kitchen to collapse on the couch. Too full to drink a beer or read? I’d not thought it possible, but it is. I am still full right now thumbing this out 12 hours later.

Streaming for Survivors:

One of the greatest alto saxophonists alive was born in Joplin, Missouri, 81 years ago today. Here he is.

Cloister Commentary, Day 124: Settling Dust

I knew the day would be pretty good when, purely by accident, my mom and I watched Buju Banton perform live on TV while we were eating breakfast. In some ways, it was a classic COVID-only moment.

‘Twas the second-to-last day of Stephens’ summer school program. Students are presenting the results of their research for their “final”; their last assignment will be a companion persuasive research essay, due Sunday night at the latest. Topics: trucker safety (that was actually the best and most interesting one!), protections for sex workers, the future of Mount Rushmore, body shaming in the fashion industry, and the effectiveness of masking in a pandemic. You’d think presentation assignments on Zoom would leave a bit to be desired, but I find I’m less distracted, and the presenters seem so as well. To be honest, I enjoyed them, and look forward to Round Two today.

I returned to my hometown of Carthage in the early afternoon to drop in for a few hours on my old friend Kevin Keller. We hadn’t seen each other in 35 years, so we compressed much info into our visit. Kevin could (and clearly still can) always be counted on for thought-provoking conversations, and his reflections on his time in Puerto Rico and Spanish Harlem and at Missouri Southern and Carthage Junior High (as a language and TESOL specialist) were fascinating. He also once did one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen documented on Facebook: he shared photos from the journey he made around the country with his ailing mom, who is currently in a nursing facility which, for reasons I need not explain, he cannot visit. Kevin was a great host, all told; I even got a home-cooked Dominican lunch out of the visit!

With the dust having settled somewhat after my father’s passing, it is now quiet enough that the true coping and processing has begun. We had a few sudden visitations of sadness and yawning absence after I returned, but decided to fight it with Modern Family (which I’d never seen), Key & Peele sketches (Peele had been a hilarious guest in the Modern Family episode), and Little Fires Everywhere, which Mom liked enough for us to binge three episodes. I’ve read the book and already watched it once, and the series really holds up.

For the record, I’m very aware of spiraling COVID cases, spooky federal agents in one of my favorite cities, the grim struggle over school reopenings, the ongoing and necessary fight in our streets for social justice, the specter of vote-suppressing chicanery, and a demagogue thrashing like the shark at the end of JAWS–it may seem I barely acknowledge it, but on my mentor Ken’s advice, in this project I’m simply writing what’s occurring with us. Paralysis is almost a tempting option, but despite churning gut and teeming brain, I’m attending to what’s in front of me. Reader, see, you’re not alone. I’m glad I’m not.

Streaming for Strivers:

One of the biggest, nattiest, most universal dreadlocked youths ever born.

Cloister Commentary, Day 123: COVID Roulette

Once a week with my on-line class, we have an Open Zoom: I make myself available for twice the required time for consultation on classwork and anything else related to writing, lit, or college survival. I screen-share a YouTube playlist so music greets them when they enter, though sometimes they have to chat at me or unmute and yell to alert me to their presence.

One of my three students from California NEVER misses an Open Zoom, which is doubly impressive as it’s 6:30 am to 8:30 am her time. She always has terrific questions, she’s always enthusiastic about her work, she’s taking and aceing all four of our program’s courses for incoming freshmen, she loves writing–and she’s an equine major! Laughing, she told me yesterday that her parents recently asked her, considering all the work she’s been doing, if she was ok, and I’ve thought the same thing. After we dealt with integrating and citing quotes into research papers MLA style, we chatted about the class and the future for about 15 minutes, and I do hope that, sometime when life is less a game of COVID roulette, she comes to see me for writing tutoring. She’s hoping Stephens is opening as it is planning to next month, and, though I don’t perfectly share that hope, she’s already bought her plane tickets. This time reeks to highest heaven and lowest hell, but she’s been a beacon.

In the afternoon, Mom and I and her teacher pal Cathy visited the splendid country home of Madison and Logan Dickens. Madison’s like a granddaughter to Mom and a niece to me; she’s a smart, diligent school nurse and mother of two, and her husband can about build or fix anything. As she cradled her bowling-ball of a newborn Presley in her elbow-nook, she and her agile and avid older daughter Lilly gave us a fascinating tour of the spread.

Like a moth to flame: after months of being relatively painlessly being weaned off sports, can I resist MLB and NBA action?

Streaming for Survivors:

For you and your folks, me and my folks–and for the super stupid…

Cloister Commentary, Day 122: A Very Smart Phone

Advice for those who survive a spouse, partner, or parent: keep their smartphones active for awhile. Retrieving website passwords for departed loved ones is a well-known plague for families already not feeling so great, but remember: when you forget a password, what do you do? You have them send a link for creating a new password to your phone or email! Apply the same technique to your posthumous struggles–you just need to have the access to their phone.

This happened to us. My brother Brian and I beat our heads against a customer service wall for several days, trying simply to transfer ownership of an account from my dad to my mom, get a stray bill paid, and convert an autopay preference to paper billing. We didn’t have a passcode, we couldn’t answer a security question (What the hell was Dad’s favorite restaurant??? We tried umpteen thousand possibilities and still don’t know, and we’ve asked around!), having Mom present for the call wasn’t good enough, and the account owner (and stockholder) wasn’t, um, available to authorize any of the changes. Told we’d have to descend into the underworld (aka an AT&T Store in Joplin) to make any progress, I punched a couple of inanimate objects and in fuming futility sat down at the computer for some desperate password stabs. As I failed and failed, I looked at that “Forgot your password?” link, and gave birth to a Athena-like lightbulb: Dad’s phone was deactivated for calls, but still plugged into the wall! Within five minutes, I’d sent “Dad” a re-set link to his email, changed the password, replaced that dang security question, and solved the other issues. I felt like drinking to my own triumph, but it was only 10 a.m.

We did celebrate, however. I drove my mom to our old hometown of Carthage to visit with her best friends, Kay and Bruce Vaughn and the always-perfectly-named Sunny Michel. She hadn’t seen them since weeks before Dad’s death, and I felt privileged to witness their reunion. I had asked Mom how long she wanted to stay, and she’d replied, “Oh, we only need to stay an hour at most.”

We spent a deeply enjoyable three hours in conversation, than jammed Carmen McRae on the way back home. I hope I have friends like that when I grow up.

Streaming for Survivors:

Foolproof cure for the blues. This stuff will stomp ’em.