Yesterday was quiet, relaxing, and free of things mundanely scintillating.
Not a cloud marked the sky, and the Budweisers were very cold.
I found myself wondered in passing what man is wearing the oldest active belt, and how old that belt is.
I ripped some gospel CDs to my external drive.
We flipped the house: dog in basement, cats upstairs. Junior is a lap cat to the manor born:
Comfortably uncomfortable.
We watched Spike Lee’s new Netflix film Tha 5 Bloods. After a terrific start, I thought it fell apart, though the lead actors were fun to watch and the use of stripped Marvin Gaye vocal tracks was really effective. I’d read the book that helped inspire it, a powerful oral history of the experience of black soldiers in Vietnam titled Bloods, so my expectations were high. It was also two-and-half hours long. I’d recommend it with the reservations I’ve already stated.
The mint juleps were even better than those of the night before.
Nicole and I participated in two outings, one a sort of outdoor committee meeting at the Hickman labyrinth to finalize some important details, the other a catch-up, hangout, beer-slurp, wine-sip with a dear friend in West Columbia. Lawn chairs and tree-shade came in mighty handy.
We got home and my body twisted my arm (a tangled metaphor, that) and hissed in my ear through gritted teeth, “You will take a nap!” I did.
I am closing in on finishing two series: Chester Himes’ nine-book “Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones” Harlem Cycle, and Gilbert Hernandez‘s Love and Rockets/Palomar Stories graphic novels. No regrets about either undertaking: those worlds are fascinating and enriching.
We played Scrabble, sipped mint juleps, cranked up the music of the great Louis Jordan, and just chilled. I cinched a win by adding an “s” to “bowel.” Bastard.
Bess, Susie, Melody, Lee, and Kendra will probably get this, but just before bed, looking out into the backyard, we spied Ponty Apers 🦊. Why yesterday? Indeed.
Streaming for Strivers:
I was once accused by a former friend when I was (politely) unimpressed by his demo tape that I “don’t even listen to rock and roll anymore.” I did, I do, I always will. Also, Black Lives Matter in garage punk!
Former high school students of mine may recall my frustration with not having enough time to get it all in–that wasn’t bad planning, that was the collision between just loving what I was doing and everything being connected. I remember when “bell-to-bell instruction” emerged as a “faculty agreement” one year, and I was like “Someone’s having to agree to that?” When I moved on to the college campus, I quickly noticed that when instructors were done, they were done, and would sometimes release their charges a bit early, as they would stream past my classroom door. I said to myself, “Well, maybe I should do that occasionally, too, if I reach the natural end of a class quickly.” Every time–every time!–I would say, “I’ll probably cut you loose a bit early to get down to it,” a student would have to point out to me that we’d reached the usual end time. There are no clocks on Stephens’ classroom walls. Once, I was so locked in that I got confused and taught an extra 15 minutes before someone stopped me (that was a great, and kind, group of students). I came to believe it was just a sign that I get into this job, and it’s reflective of life, too: you have to work to squeeze it all in before the big hand hits that hash mark. Yesterday, for the first time, I told my virtual students, who hail from all over the country, from the California – Mexico border to Mississippi to Pennsylvania, “I’m going to cut you loose a shade early after we talk about revision to actually start revising.”
Guess what happened? I guess I’m even loving virtuality.
Other highlights: Nicole’s fresh moussaka, Bess Frissell’s “Communion calculation” (based on a 150-pound Jesus), Art Tatum flying around the keyboard and out the house speakers, three powerful new books, and a nice neighborhood walk. One sad note: watching my patiently, sincerely, warmly, and painstakingly constructed set of responses to a (former, and fragile) Facebook friend’s query regarding why I had to post about black beauty get wiped–I need to abjure “Reply” in the future in such matters. It was not I who clicked “unfriend,” by the way. But, perhaps, “better down the road / without that load.”
Yesterday, I graded papers. I grit my teeth dragging myself to the task, slowly warm to it, almost lose myself paper by paper, and feel renewed afterwards. Somewhere the atoms of George Frissell are laughing and calling bullsh*t on that claim, but I’ve graded over 30,000 in my life, and one does find little streams of pleasure in it. I’ve got some good writers this summer, but later for the comma splices!
I have been struggling with an issue regarding a package USPS couldn’t deliver, had to redeliver, then lost. I’d filed a help request, and received an apology email, but the title of the email included the inaccurate word “Resolved.” So I fired back a tart but polite reply that there had to be more to it than I was being told–I had the tracking number, but no receipt to match it. In no time, I received a call from the local supervisor who’d written the email, who then expertly de-escalated my case of the red-ass, gave me some useful information by which I reached understanding, and very sincerely apologized again. I thanked him for caring enough to follow up, and as I was about to hang up, he said, “Did you use to teach at Hickman? I’m sorry I was a punk.” I had to tell him that a lot of punks turn out just fine.
I went a paragraph too long so I guess those essays aren’t that fetching.
Streaming for Strivers:
Medicine. These songs have been for years, and here they’re administered with care and mastery by two jazz physicians.
I may have to change this commentary’s name, though I have no illusion that the journey is over. Nicole and I walked the trail from Cosmo Park to Garth, which certainly helped us to feel less cloistered. Columbia offers some great trail walks.
We finally were album to Zoom with our friends Rex, Jill, and Heather. They are a good bunch, part of an unofficial team formed several years ago to combat indifference. It was good to see their faces, and next week we hope to round up the rest of the Joy Unit: Isaac, Beth, Angela, Frank, Mike, and Derrick. Could be a weekly thing; in fact, we will convene next Sunday. As The Commodores sang in our youth, friends:
Whoa, Zoom, I’d like to fly far away from here Where my mind can see fresh and clear And I’ll find the love that I long to see People can be as what they wanna be Whoa, I wish the world were truly happy Living as one I wish the world they call Freedom Someday would come Someday would come!
I’d like to say to my city that, though we have much work left to do and just keep doing, I am very proud to live here, especially after yesterday. We were not among the thousands–thousands–who were out on our streets for justice, but we have been applying our hearts and minds to it indoors, I assure you. And to our city police who are protecting, standing with, and even on occasion kneeling with the freedom fighters, I hope you feel it’s only strengthened you within, and cost you nothing that’s truly of value.
Streaming for Strivers:
A soundtrack to successful resistance and remaking–it ain’t called Rhodesia anymore!–but a reminder that the shoulder must be kept firmly to the wheel of justice. From The Lion of Zimbabwe…
As both of our schools (I will actually be negotiating three) edge toward a decision on how they will open in the fall and Covid-19 cases rapidly increase in our locality, Nicole and I are struggling to appreciate each present moment. Part of that increase is due to a barrage of testing we participated in last week, but nonetheless the phenomenon is not a comfort, and it’s just the truth that we will all only be able to control our own responses to the work environments we re-enter. Maybe it’s best to remind ourselves it’s still a marathon, not nearly a sprint, and to reach the fall in strong mind, body and spirit, fortified by not neglecting the moments between, is the right set of actions. I hope I can be disciplined enough.
As always, in times of stress, we turned to deviled eggs. Amazingly, I did not eat all 16 yesterday: eight sriracha, eight wasabi. But I think we’re down to less than half.
Quivering, shivering deviled eggs trying to hide in the fridge.
I am so encouraged by the change already being brought about by our citizens’ constant protest pressure. It is inspiring. At the same time, though I am pro-union, I worry about the defiance soon to be mounted by police unions led by humans who have no interest in change but do have an interest in maintaining a culture of impunity for demonstrably dangerous police officers. There is only one way that kind of leadership can be changed.
If you’re seeking out detective fiction with strong, complex female characters (and at least one reasonably tolerable male one), may I direct you to the “Beaumont noir” of Lisa Sandlin‘s Delpha Wade and Tom Phelan novels? At present, there are two, though I’ve been apprised that Sandlin has a new one in the chute. Phelan is a war veteran and former oil rig worker who sets up as a P. I. in that strange Texas town; Wade, freshly released from prison at 32 after 14 years on a questionable murder charge–she killed someone, but–is, almost by fate, Phelan’s first hire. She’s his secretary, but she’s the more intuitive and observant detective, and she soon transcends that job and mesmerizes her “boss.” Sandlin’s deftness and wit with dialogue, plot, characterization and local color are truly amazing, and she’s fearless, funny and earthy. Compulsively readable, the first is The Do-Right, the second is The Bird Boys. Thanks to Beaumont’s own Frissell Boys for leading me to them. I think Sandlin is a genius.$
Streaming for Strivers:
This came up in my YouTube feed, and like a virus I must infect you.
I was reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Mud, No Lotus, which primarily looks at the fact that suffering and happiness are essential to each other’s existence, and reached a passage where he suggests that, in the midst of suffering, as an alternative to despair or anger, breathing in and reminding yourself of the miraculous wells of happiness within you, still at your behest, like sight. Sounds simple–that’s TNH!–but he’s right, and you don’t have to deny your suffering doing so: rather you can sit with it. This really appealed to me, because I have been suffering from loss, but I can also blow up small incidents of aggravation into states of mind and sensation that feel like suffering, and lose my sense of proportion (another thing that pisses me off about me: wait til you see the “suffering” in the next ‘graf!).
Ok, so RIGHT AFTER READING THE ABOVE PASSAGE, with a new tool to use, I went out to meet the mail carrier. Two packages were due to arrive, and a package that we’d missed still hadn’t been redelivered after several days, so I wanted to see if she knew anything about it. I was standing at the end of the driveway waiting for her–and she suddenly put the pedal to the metal and blew right by me, down to the end of the block, and exited the neighborhood! Simmering, I quietly stomped back in the house to help Nicole brush out Louis. He has to wear a harness around the clock because he’s unpredictable, and it had to come off for full grooming. Try as I might, I could not get the harness back on the hound properly, and, whipping it down on the floor at Nicole’s feet, I just LOST IT! “F—k it, I can’t DO THIS!!! Where was the DAMN MAIL CARRIER GOING?!!! ARGHHYEAA$@#%!!” Near-hysteria.
So much for Thich Nhat Hanh’s wisdom. Turns out the mail carrier had just gotten a call that another carrier had to be immediately relieved due to heat exhaustion. And how ’bout that “suffering,” eh?
After a few Budweisers–where DID I put that copy of No Mud, No Lotus?–and a great dinner of spaghet, I sat with my bride in the front room in the dark for a couple of hours listening to our favorite songs on about 7, most but not all with social justice themes: “Uncloudy Day,” “Bernadette,” “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” “Can’t Truss It,” “Typical American,” “The Great Compromise,” “East Texas Red,” “Making History,” “What a Diff’rence A Day Makes,” “Free Your Mind and Your Ass WILL Follow,” “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud),” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).” I wish we could be out on the streets, but I suppose they also serve who only stand and wait. Of course, Milton was going blind when he wrote that.
Streaming for Strivers:
Speaking of the protesters? It is no mystery: they’re…
In addition, a classic StoryCorps episode, in which a black father and his nine-year-old son discuss their life together in Mississippi, and a revisiting of George Perkins and The Silver Stars’ “Crying in the Streets”both ensured I would remain a sentient being for the day. I know I am constantly pushing media here but it keeps me human, and if it can help you, too, then my seconds have not been wasted.
In the late afternoon, I had a great, wide-ranging phone conversation with the spirited Bess Frissell. Once, when she was very young, she ran at top speed from one end of a Hickman High hallway to the other, where I happened to be standing, and at full force leaped on me like a mad monkey. That is one of my favorite memories of being a Kewpie. We laughed, kvetched, speculated, commiserated, traded theories, and compared dilemmas. And planned to get caught up soon.
Nicole and I closed the day with a trip to Tony’s Pizza Palace’s curb, a kat klatsch, and a chasing of last night’s strawberry moon. We caught it for the best possible view at the Hickman labyrinth. What do you know?
Streaming for Strivers:
Something never to give up on. Here’s your chance to dance your way / Out of your constrictions.
The day opened with Nicole’s delicious thick blueberry pancakes, some real maple syrup, and two poached eggs. After that, I was ready for anything.
I experimented with an open Zoom writing workshop, since my charge have a paper due for peer (and my) review Monday. Seemed to work fine. I had a few students pop in to (gently) bounce ideas off me, including the one who wore a WWJJD shirt to class yesterday (“What would Joan Jett do?”). Week 1 of summer school teachin’? Loved it.
For lunch, Nicole fixed us our 10th locally-grown 🍅 + (Blue Plate) mayonnaise + lettuce sandwich of the pandemic. Our summer officially starts with those.
I previous mentioned Derf Backderf’s graphic novel Trashed, but I didn’t expect to devour it in two sittings (it’s 260 pages long). If you’ve ever wondered about the fate of your trash, or reflected on your trash practices, you might want to check it out. Plus, it’s eye-wateringly funny, and distinctively drawn. Backderf’s much-anticipated Kent State book arrives on September 4th.
We closed the day with a relatively long jaunt around our neighborhood which we completed just before trouble descended in our locality–and just opened today marveling at a strange, jaundiced sunrise.
Streaming for Shut-Ins (Do I need to rename this feature?):
Rod Taylor, thanks for recommending Mr. Gil’s Refavela to me, which led me to THIS one, which I also love and had never heard. Folks, this musician is a shining jewel of Brazilian expression…
First long neighborhood walk in awhile. First watering of the landscaping. The roses are poppin’–Japanese beetles, stand down!
Absolutely not kidding–my summer school students responded to their reading assignment with the best analytical discussion I’ve witnessed in a long time, through that dang Zoom. They read three essays that I carefully selected to help them set early goals for their own writing: Roxane Gay’s very recent piece in the NYT, Yuyun Yi’s short, sharp, and vivid “Orange Crush,” and Zoe Shewer’s three drafts of “Ready, Willing, and Able.” They participated pretty broadly and had amazing insights, and I think they’d have appreciated my facial expressions if I’d remembered to “Start Video”!!! All they saw for the first half-hour was an avatar of me standing on the stage of The Blue Note in a Dead Moon shirt, yelling during a Battle of the Bands.
I played with three of our cats for maybe too long (Jeez Louise, I’m 58!). They have found a cruddy piece of cord that is driving them insane–they have no time for official toys–and I have to hang it up on a nail high on a wall after each round unless I want to lose it. I walked into the office and Spirit was sitting there, staring at it as if that would make it drop, so I put her, Junior, and Cleo through their paces. #COVID19activities.
Speaking of COVID-19, my test results came back and I am negative. Nicole is still waiting for hers.
The Overeem Farewell Tour: Dispatches from the Public School Trenches 