a cacophony of meditations

music

songs

dances

cliffs

clouds

positive

negative

scary

dumb

crazy

full of grace

a cloudy, foggy day for getting cozy and reading a mystery

cat purrs

bicycle down to the pond

new ideas embedded in routines

-30-

writing down everything on the Internet

     I'm still learning to become accustomed to having the variety of the Internet at my fingertips.  

     I find something I enjoy watching, or want to watch / listen to -- on You Tube, Netflix, or Amazon Prime -- and then I start thinking, You know, I don't have time for it all now -- but I don't want to forget about it, when it's something I value -- how can I hold all this information in my head?

     I took a blank spiral notebook and started making a note of videos, movies, series (zez) ...

Jazz -- Amazon Prime

The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion - Amazon Prime

Take The Money And Run -- You Tube

...

-30-

wake the nation

------------------------- [excerpt from Hunter Thompson's Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72] -------------------------- 

After months of quasi-public brooding on the Whys and Wherefores of the disastrous beating he absorbed last November, McGovern seems finally to have bought the Conventional Wisdom -- 

that his campaign was doomed from the start:  

conceived in a fit of hubris, born in a momentary power-vacuum that was always more mirage than reality, borne along on a tide of frustration churned up by liberal lint-heads and elitist malcontents in the Eastern Media Establishment, and finally bashed into splinters on the reefs of at least two basic political realities that no candidate with good sense would ever have tried to cross in the first place.... To wit:

(1) Any incumbent President is unbeatable, except in a time of mushrooming national crisis or a scandal so heinous -- and with such obvious roots in the White House -- as to pose a clear and present danger to the financial security and/or physical safety of millions of voters in every corner of the country.

(2) The "mood of the nation," in 1972, was so overwhelmingly vengeful, greedy, bigoted and blindly reactionary that no presidential candidate who even faintly reminded "typical voters" of the fear & anxiety they'd felt during the 

constant "social upheavals" of the Sixties 

had any chance at all of beating Nixon last year -- not even Ted Kennedy -- because the "pendulum effect" that began with Nixon's slim victory in '68 was totally irreversible by 1972. ----------------------- [end, excerpt]

________________________________

Let! - The river run!

Let all the dreamers

Wake the nation

Come, the New Jerusalem

Sil - ver cities rise
The morning lights,
The streets that meet them,
And sirens call them on -- 
With a song --



On You Tube, type in 

let the river run 

------------------ "Let The River Run" by Carly Simon will probably come up right at the top with 9.3M views:

PLAY


...It's asking for the taking --
Trembling, shaking --
Oh, my heart is aching!

We're coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog
Your sons and daughters


We -- the great and small --

Stand on a star

And blaze a trail of desire

Through the dark'ning dawn...


It's asking -- for the taking
Come, run with me now,
The sky is the color of blue
You've never even seen
In the eyes of your lover --

Oh, my heart is aching --

We're coming to the edge!
Running on the water!
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters!...

Let -- the river run (the river run)...

-30-

all those crazy nights

----------------------- [excerpt, Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson] ------------------------------------------- 
HST:  Shortly after six... Central Time.  So that was what... five o'clock Eastern Time... No seven Eastern Time, excuse me... and four California time...  It was really all over by then.  By 6:30 there wasn't a person at the Holiday Inn who didn't know what had happened.  There was never any question of winning, but the shock set in when people began to sense the dimensions of it, how bad it was...  


And the tip-off there was... I'm not sure... but... first it was when Ohio went down ... no, Ilinois... that's right, it was Illinois... When Illinois went by 11 points you could almost feel the shudder that went through the place because Illinois was where they had Gene Pokorny, their best organizer.  

He was a real wizard.  

He's the one who did the Wisconsin primary.  And Illinois was the key state so they put their best person in.  They had to have Illinois.  If the election had been close Illinois would have been critical, and with Daley coming around there was at least a possibility that Illinois would go for McGovern.  But if Pokorny couldn't carry Illinois -- when it went down by 11 points, a feeling of shock and doom came over the whole place.  

Nobody talked.

__________________________________

All those crazy nights
When I cried myself to sleep
Now melodrama never makes me weep -- anymore


'Cause I  haven't got time for the pain

I haven't got room for the pain

I haven't the need for the pain

Not since I've known you


You -- showed me how --
How to leave myself behind
How to turn down the noise in my mind --

Now - I - haven't got time for the pain
I haven't got room for the pain
I haven't the need for the pain...

----------------------------- On You Tube, type in 

Haven't Got Time For the Pain

-- Carly Simon -- a video with good sound and the complete song is the one featuring a picture of her Hotcakes album cover -- it's light white, and Carly is in the right-hand part of the photograph, as you're looking at it -- she's sitting on a chair, wearing a long white dress.

PLAY! - and when the instrumental part at the end keeps going, not fading right away, don't turn it off yet, listen to that part, because it sounds great.  They've got -- cellos and strings, or something, I don't know... It's good.

-------------------------------------
{"Haven't Got Time for the Pain" - written by Carly Simon and Jacob Brackman}

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hear me now and understand

-------------------- And so much for all that.  [excerpt, Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson] --------------- The point I meant to make here -- before we wandered off on that tangent about jack-rabbits -- is that everything was written under savage deadline pressure in the traveling vortex of a campaign so confusing and unpredictable that not even the participants claimed to know what was happening.

     I had never covered a presidential campaign before I got into this one, but I quickly got so hooked on it that I began betting on the outcome of each primary -- and, by combining aggressive ignorance with a natural instinct to mock the conventional wisdom, I managed to win all but two of the 50 or 60 bets I made between February and November.  

My first loss came in New Hampshire, where I felt guilty for taking advantage of one of McGovern's staffers who wanted to bet that George would get more than 35% of the vote; and I lost when he wound up with 37.5%.  But from that point on, I won steadily -- until November 7th, when I made the invariably fatal mistake of betting my emotions instead of my instinct.


     The final result was embarrassing, but what the hell?  I blew that one, along with a lot of other people who should have known better....

-----------------------------------------------------

On You Tube, type in

Mockingbird, Carly Simon and James Taylor

-- I think the top video that will come up will be the one we want -- a live performance -- in the picture you see James Taylor on the left wearing short-sleeved T-shirt, Carly Simon on right wearing purple stripes -- video has 3 million views.

Play.

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you're where you should be all the time

     (Son - of - a - gun)

You walked into the party -- like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot

You had one eye in the mirror as --
You watched yourself gavotte

And all the girls - dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and --

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?  Don't you?


You had me several years ago -- when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave

But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me

I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee and --

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?  Don't you?

[instrumental break]

I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee and --

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?  Don't you?

Well I hear you went up to Saratoga,
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun

Well you're where you should be all of the time
And when you're not - you're with -
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and --


You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?  Don't you?  Don't you now?!


You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?  Don't you?  

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?  Don't you?  

(fade)
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?  Don't you?  ...

----------------------------------------------

go on You Tube, and type in

you're so vain, Carly Simon, album version

Select the video that shows the album cover where Carly Simon is standing, looking at the camera, wearing reddish-brown brimmed hat and slacks, plus a shirt (light blue? periwinkle?) and a light blue purse over her right shoulder.
3 Million Views.

     The reason I suggest a particular video is, there are many "You're So Vains" on You Tube and a lot of them have bad sound, or some other video starts in the middle of it -- it is as if someone imbibed a variety of recreational drugs and then started putting up videos.  'S-annoying.

     So I'm trying to recommend the one where it sounds good and you can hear the song.  

And now -- Play.

__________________________________

----------------------- [excerpt, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72] ------------------ This was one of the traditional barriers I tried to ignore when I moved to Washington and began covering the '72 presidential campaign.  As far as I was concerned, there was no such thing as "off the record."  

The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America has its roots in the clubby / cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists -- in Washington or anywhere else where they meet on a day-to-day basis.  

When professional antagonists become after-hours drinking buddies, they are not likely to turn each other in... especially not for "minor infractions" of rules that neither side takes seriously; and on the rare occasions when Minor infractions suddenly become Major, there is panic on both ends.

-30-

I'm no prophet

We -- can never know - about the days to come --

But we think about them anyway...

And I wonder - if I'm really -- with you now,
Or just chasing -- after -- -- some -- finer day...

An - ti - ci - pa - tion, Anticipa - ay - tion,
Is making me late
It's keeping me way - ay - ay - ay - ay - ay-ting...


And I tell you - how easy it is - to be with you
And how right your arms feel, around me.

But I - rehearsed those words just late-last-night,
When I was thinkin' about how right tonight might be - 

Anticipation, Anticipation
Is making me late
Is keeping me waiting...

And tomorrow - we might not be - together
I'm no prophet, and I don't know nature's way -
But I'll try - to see into your - eyes right now,
And stay right here
'Cause these are the good old days!

These are the good old days!
And stay right here - 
'Cause these are the good old days...

_______________________________________

On You Tube, type in

Anticipation, Carly Simon

Select the video that has the cover of the album, Anticipation.  It's a black-and-white photo (or -- gray-and-white), Carly Simon standing holding open big iron gates, wearing a sheer skirt, a top with drapey sleeves, and boots.

     And Play.

___________________________________

---------------------- [excerpt, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72] ---------------------------------------------- Some of the scenes in this twisted saga will not make much sense to anybody except the people who were involved in them.  

Politics has its own language, which is often so complex that it borders on being a code, and the main trick in political journalism is learning how to translate -- to make sense of the partisan bullshit that even your friends will lay on you -- without crippling your access to the kind of information that allows you to keep functioning.  

Covering a presidential campaign is not a hell of a lot different from getting a long-term assignment to cover a newly elected district attorney who made a campaign promise to "crack down on Organized Crime."  

In both cases, you find unexpected friends on both sides, and in order to protect them -- and to keep them as sources of private information -- you wind up knowing a lot of things you can't print, or which you can only say without even hinting at where they came from.

-30-

know it when we see it

     Last week I was surprised to read some of the hostile Comments about the Super Bowl half-time show, featuring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez.

     Reading and analyzing some people's responses prompted deep complex ponderings, such as -- "Yikes."


     A few theories suggest themselves.  When people get organized to watch the Super Bowl, they are primed for a certain kind of entertainment experience, and -- singing and dancing is not it.  Football is Competition.  And when you insert music or any kind of art in the middle of that, you're kind of asking the audience to shift gears in a major way -- when you think about it.

     When I recall the musical exhibitions I've attended -- rock concerts outdoors and in; nightclub performances in venues big and small -- none of them offered football as an entertainment during a "break" in the middle of the show.
      And if they had, it would have seemed kind of jarring.  Sort of off-base.  Like -- not what you came to see.


     Another aspect I've been contemplating is something I have noticed at different times over the years of my life -- there are some people who are made uncomfortable if they see a dance performance.  They don't know if they like it, or how to relate to it.  I've heard the comment -- in various versions, from a couple of people -- "I liked the singing, but -- all that dancing around, I don't know..."

______________________________
     In schools they used to sometimes have a class called "Art Appreciation."  I took it, my freshman year in college.  It's the idea that people need some knowledge and perspective to understand how to appreciate art.  How to approach it, and understand or evaluate it.

     I wonder if some people in different age groups just never took Art Appreciation, or never had the chance to take it, or took Art Appreciation but it didn't have anything about dance, it was strictly  paintings and architecture.


     And there are probably many people who could see a dance performance, even if they had never taken an Art Appreciation course, and automatically, naturally say, "Aahh!  That's beautiful!"
     While someone else might see the same dance and go, "Oh my gosh!  What was that?!"  (Outrage.)

-30-

yes-sir, no-sir, Don't take over the government-sir...

     Seven Days In May is on You Tube!  You can watch beginning to end, for free.

     This movie came out in 1964.  It's about a plot to take over U.S. government.  There's that fascinating, tense dynamic where Kirk Douglas's character finds out about it, and tries to tell the powers-that-be, but people don't want to believe him.

     Ecomcon.  (That's the secret -- name of it....)

     And there's a secret code tied in with betting on some horse race.

     Two actresses in the film, Ava Gardner and Colette Jackson, both appear with "Jackie Kennedy" hair -- the brunette bouffant flip.  I doubt it was intentional, that every lady in the movie had to have that hairstyle, but it was real popular at the time.  

     The year after the assassination, Mrs. Kennedy held a particular, strange place of tragedy and pride and courage, in the public consciousness.  And -- the hairstyle might have become popular anyway....

     Ava Gardner and Colette Jackson were both born in North Carolina.

     Colette Jackson married Solomon Sturges -- "Hollywood royalty" as he was the son of Preston Sturges, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.  Their daughter Shannon Sturges is an actress best known for her role in the WB primetime soap opera, "Savannah."

     Colette Jackson died five years after filming Seven Days In May.  She was 35.

     I thought she was very good in the small part she played.  

-30-

Je suis Spartacus

     If you go on You Tube and type in

I am Spartacus


you can watch the famous scene from the Kirk Douglas movie.

-30-

the last house...

     Kirk Douglas lived to be 103 years old and then passed on, yesterday.

     I remember when his autobiography came out, in the '80s -- The Ragman's Son.

-------------------- [excerpt] ------------- "Nobody" meant being the son of illiterate Russian Jewish immigrants in the WASP town of Amsterdam, New York, twenty-eight miles northwest of Albany.  

It meant living in the East End, the opposite side of town from the rich people on Market Hill.  

It meant living at 46 Eagle Street, a run-down, two-story, gray clapboard house, the last house at the bottom of a sloping street, next to the factories, the railroad tracks, and the Mohawk River.



     My father, Herschel Danielovitch, was born in Moscow around 1884, and fled Russia around 1908 to escape being drafted into the Russian army to fight in the Russo-Japanese War.  

Those were the days when ignorant peasants like my father, conscripted into the army, had hay tied on one sleeve, and straw on the other, so that they could tell their right hand from their left.  

My mother, Bryna Sanglel, from a family of Ukrainian farmers, stayed behind and worked in a bakery to earn enough money to come to America two years later.  

She wanted all her children to be born in this wonderful new land.... --------------------- [end, excerpt]

___________________________

Kirk Douglas was in many movies:  I'm going to watch two of them -- one, I've seen several times before -- Out Of The Past, and the other one, Seven Days In May, I have not seen before -- it has Ava Gardner in it, as well as Martin Balsam, who was also in All The President's Men.

___________________________

-30-

OK -- was there a ball game to go with that?

     On Monday of this week on the Internet, I encountered all these articles and videos and Comments -- about the halftime show during the Super Bowl.

     Judging from the tenor, tone, and content of people's statements and protests, I started wondering, "My goodness, what in the world went on at that halftime show?!"


Some Comments -- from New York Times readers, no less --

C.B. Taylor
Richmond, Virginia
Marge Keller, My feelings exactly!!  If you have young people watching the game with their parents and friends, it sends the wrong message.  And if you're going to do the strip club act, where are the men who could be prancing around to entertain all the women who are watching the game?


AustinCaro
Austin, Texas
I was embarrassed watching it.  I felt that it was watching an extended commercial for the Playboy channel.  This is not something that I would want a younger person to watch.  It portrays a bad image of women.  The Super Bowl should be family entertainment.

Dean
Prizren, Kosovo
Time for the frenetic R-rated half time shows to come with a parental warning.  And for some of us who don't live and die with pop culture, it has become quite boring.  A window of opportunity to wash the dinner dishes.


Thomas B
St. Augustine
I'd rather see a marching band at halftime--Michigan, USC, Notre Dame or whatever.  You know, like a football game.

Aaron
Orange County, California
Why can't she just sing and dance in regular clothes?  Why half naked?  Who is objectifying who?  ..#MeToo chime in any time..

Ed
Colorado
Tawdry and vulgar--like the "Superbowl" itself.


RLS
Arkansas
Doesn't Jennifer Lopez have parents?

D.j.j.k.
south Delaware
I can't support a violent sport like football.  Too many players are getting brain damaging CTE's and what is happening to the women's outfits or lack of. 

I thought this was supposed to be a family show i don't know why with all the violence and now almost naked women and singer the rating should be xxx.  

How about cleaning up your act cover up at least.  

The sport and the almost naked women are now profoundly immoral like our president.

-------------------------- (What??!!  How did the president get dragged into this??)

Irene
Fairbanks
There's nothing wrong with wanting to look fit and healthy at any age.  Acting like a cat in heat in front of a world audience is something else altogether tho.

------------------------ (What???!!!!  How did the cats get dragged into this????!!!)

KCox
Philadelphia
I truly am not a prude, but the outfits and dance moves were pretty gross . . . in 1990 you'd have to go to a strip club to see something like that.  I can see how this fits into the hyper-marketing of pro football as a spectacle, but it just demeans the viewer as much as the performer.  Society becomes evermore crass . . . 

ASW
Emory, Virginia
Forget "Dress your age."  It would be far better if people would speak and think their age.  

The halftime show was ugly - just a show of revenge by the wealthy, male, sponsors and producers against the #MeToo movement and a show of support for our ever genius Leader Trump.  BAH.

------------------------- (Duck, Donald!)

__________________________________

     Then after a while, the tide started to turn in the Comments:

Ajax
Georgia
Reading many of the comments makes me wonder whether the Puritans arrived a few days ago, rather than some four centuries ago.

Gregg
Oregon
This was the Super Bowl people - not a night at the Philharmonic.  Lighten up!

________________________________
________________________

     Then I used my tablet to go on You Tube and watch the 2020 halftime show, starring Jennifer Lopez and Shakira.  After the Comments I had read, I was prepared for Something Bad, although I couldn't imagine either of these entertainers doing something bad, yet I certainly had the impression -- 'Wow, a lot of people are really upset'...

     I watched it, and thought it was good.  Thought, "did the Commenters watch the same show I watched? -- Did I miss something?"  Watched it again.  Costumes -- dancing -- singing...  There are problems to worry about in today's world, but that half-time show was not one of them.
     (It's like that "99 problems" expression -- "I got 99 problems, but the super bowl halftime show is not one of them"...)

______________________________

You Tube Comments:


 ~  The tongue action is called "trilling" and it is done at Egyptian and Moroccan (amongst other middle eastern locations) weddings and celebrations, I saw an amazing display of Latina-Caribbean and Middle Eastern as well as Central African dance moves.  

I'm so proud right now.  #migente 

I took Afro American Caribbean dance my first year in college (1992) and we studied all types and I can tell you, this is an amazing show and nothing less than a spectacular lesson in culture and art in motion.  Respect that.

---------------------

 ~  Esteph Alba
Now yall know why Latino parties last till 6 am the next day....

 ~  I'm a European I only watch half time show.

 ~  I'm so happy she performed ojos asi, even if it was for a few seconds


 ~  Latin art, The Arabic art, African art -- Really great performance.  Art always makes life appear more peaceful, innocent and pure

 ~  loved all the culture being represented and tributed in this performance it was great.

 ~  Jesus Luz
     Latinos always showing us how to slay it!!  We have the energy and happiness the world is needing!!!

________________________

-30-