Tag: Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Cloister Commentary, Day 139: Revivals

I know enough about Facebook’s malfeasances to run screaming from the platform, but I think of George Strait and Dylan Thomas: I’m in too deep to turn back now, so I guess I’ll sing in my chains like the sea. I’m duplicating this journey elsewhere on the InnerTubes, so it’s less about this than not being able to stay in such immediate touch with so many people who’ve enriched my life. Maybe I’ll pay for it one day. (Thanks to my former student Kristin Conrad for making me furrow my brow over it.)

My major project yesterday was finishing up some estate work for Nicole and me. To my chagrin, I discovered I’d last looked at the documents in 2014. However, I put my head down and bulled through most of the rest of it; now, we have only the hardest questions remaining. One would think that, since we have no heirs, those concerns should be easy to address, but they are not. And though we’re both pretty healthy, that can be quite a temporary condition under normal circumstances, not to mention right now.

Nicole made chickpea tikka masala with brown basmati rice: delicious, healthy, and very hard to confine to one serving, but I did–I’m working on my “COVID 10.” After dinner, we tuned into Turner Classic Movies and deeply enjoyed Elmer Gantry. What a wild performance by Burt Lancaster, what an essential archival viewing for U. S. citizens (even though it softens Sinclair Lewis’ novel a bit), and what surprising production values and erotic touches for a 1960 mainstream film! Did you know (I bet Rex Harris does) that both actors who played “Sammy Baker Davis Junior”‘s grandpas in Sixteen Candles also play small but key roles in Elmer Gantry, shot 24 years before?

Streaming for Survivors:

What a band, and what an inside-outside record!

Cloister Commentary, Day 21: Blithely

I am writing these to a) share how Nicole and I are making our way through this crisis, and b) keep a record of our journey so we can look back when we have better perspective. Sometimes, though, when I re-read them, I’m dumbstruck by the good fortune that allows me to move about securely and comfortably in my home environment, and I feel a pulse of self-loathing that just makes me want to stop writing.

But–no matter how blithely I may seem to move through my days, I’m all too aware that we were in trouble before COVID-19, we’re unbelievably vulnerable now, and we’re surrounded by many (who happen to have access to the buttons, levers, and strings) who have only scorn for vulnerability. So…one can carry that around all day, into the night, and as dawn breaks. Frequently, I can’t turn my projective mind off; I do stay (and have stayed) well-informed, and that information constantly feeds the projector. Today, I video-conference with the two student teachers I supervise, and I know I won’t be able to help from asking them to project what their teaching environments will be like in the fall, and how they hope to respond to their students who’ve been hit the hardest.

I am so grateful for the books, music, laughs and love that allow me to be distracted meaningfully and healthily from these concerns. If it does seem I’m responding too blithely to our troubles, perhaps I am, but a quickened heartbeat has been disrupting my sleep.

Streaming for Shut-Ins:

Maybe we need to talk to the spirits.