O it’s broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it’s the gate where they’re turning, turning;
Their boots are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.
(last verse of “O what is that sound?”)
Yes, the domestic terrorists at the Capitol, and, fittingly, law and order coming for Trump once he leaves office on January 20th. The chickens have come home to roost and will continue to come home for him once he leaves the limited confines of the White House.
on the dangerous winter streets of Edmonton yesterday. City Council has, irresponsibly, encouraged and endorsed all-year cycling on what are always dangerous Edmonton roads, especially in winter (roads largely uncleared this year so far). This is not Vancouver or Victoria.
Drivers here drive like hell, like there’s no one else on the road. Any guy (next-to-nil women would be dumb enough to ride bicycles in winter, methinks) who believed he was safe and protected in ‘bike-friendly’ (city council’s attitude, money wasted on bike lanes in winter) Edmonton was not thinking rationally or using common sense.
Bike riders and deking motorcycle riders are hard to see for many other vehicle drivers. I doubt that the driver of the truck who hit the cyclist while turning even fathomed that it was possible that a cyclist would be on January roads on a busy main thoroughfare. Someone/something that small (much like a pedestrian, even if moving) can get lost in the melee of traffic jockeying.
And I doubt that this unnecessary tragic accident will cause an iota of concern to the bike-blind members of City Council more concerned about currying favor with the 1% bike riders of a longtime hardcore truck and car city. They have repeatedly made their limited, limiting dangerous choices since 2000.
Zooming for Christmas. A sign of the times.
“The Boys” are into space and, here, cubes.
Birthday gifts arriving: special delivery. Interesting visual with message from tv screen behind.
When the tree went up in the living room; after it had been decorated by my daughter.
With daughter. A cozy Christmas with cohort.
Tree close-up with bubble candle-lights from the early ’60s or late ’50s. Tree decorations range/d from 1949 to 2020.
The family room on a typical winter night.
Same room with ceiling projection by Xmas gift connected to laptop. Projects different colors and shapes and has movement and music.
Study shelf: zen garden, 2 miniature paintings, (above) Leonard Cohen special ed. stamps framed.
Study: gold record wall-clock.
Fridge magnets: top to bottom, left to right: Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Orwell, Hitchcock, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wilde, Sherlock Holmes, James Joyce, Kafka, Whitman, (son, old pic), Louis Armstrong , 2 Frank Lloyd Wrights; new @ Xmas: Rumi, to be added
A Covid Halloween here; our humor remains intact.
Nothing quite like new moccasins for Christmas.
Pieter Brueghel The Elder’s “Hunters in the Snow” (1565)
Saturn on top, Jupiter below. Taken with a small Canon camera on the patio. (Click image to zoom.)
Just a representation of many fine singers from the present and past. I have asterisked my favorites.
Aretha Franklin
Ella Fitzgerald
Marian Anderson
Whitney Houston
Diana Ross *
Michael Jackson
Prince
Ray Charles *
Charley Pride
Stevie Wonder *
James Brown
Smokey Robinson
Tina Turner
Billie Holliday
Sarah Vaughan *
Otis Redding
Louis Armstrong *
Little Richard
Chuck Berry *
Nat ‘King’ Cole *
Sam Cooke *
Lionel Richie
Bob Marley
Jimi Hendrix
Dionne Warwick *
during a pandemic, without their wives and partners?
We’d all look like Nick Nolte’s arrest photo!
and mourning when someone you know or were close to passes, there is at the same time, in the wake of initial feelings, a sense of picking things up and carrying on; even a slight renewed energy in facing the rest of the day. I would have to attribute this to the inspiration of thinking about the departed person, their example, and presence. Almost as if their energy passes osmotically into those closest to the person, giving more purpose and meaning.
