People losing it in lines or having to wait. Zero patience under the unprecedented circumstances: “I’m more important than the rest of youse.”
Given the number of people who stocked up on guns (?!) south of the border, the U.S. should be very worried. I intuit that something big and violent will happen there this weekend or next week. (I hope I’m wrong on this one.)
The mental health of many North Americans of all ages will, undoubtedly, take a hit. Not enough inner and external resources.
Health-care workers, doctors, nurses, support and cleaning staff.
Those who put their lives on the line for others as their continuing jobs.
Each day for me is a positive in still being me and alive. And with family and loved ones intact. That and as many friends well and intact, too.
But each day for me is a tabula rasa of sorts as I start to fill it in from morning on. For me, the day is full with many possibilities that I can will and bring into being, beginning with myself. It is that base on which everything and everyone else in my life depends.
I am responsible for my day and the choices I make that day. Every day is a taking care of business, a moving forward with growth possibilities on a number of fronts, in a number of ‘worlds’.
Quite often I am reaching for a book, asking a question, or checking online for info of the moment I am looking for. It is important to stay that focused and mentally engaged all ways.
Each day I watch, read, or talk about something to satisfy my curiosity. Topics arise naturally in the flow of minutes. I am constantly putting in or putting back in. It is a constant drive to reinforce self, mind, heart, spirit, and soul. My responsibility and no one else’s. And if you don’t put in…well…. that’s a choice. True, the current age has become a great age of diminishment/s and a new Dark Ages, especially with schools, universities, and workplaces closing. Our personal worlds have all been shrunk by the virus and government action. We are all much less than we were even one week ago.
So, what about the mind? Does it do a number on itself with increased fears, paranoias, obsessions, and the beginnings of mental illness? Or do we fortify ourselves, our inner and external home-front resources by reading viewing, conversing, e-mailing, home-bonding, imagining, and increased positive growth thinking?
(Existentially, I made my choice a long time ago. I am responsible for my self and my life. No one else. If the world goes crazy and dangerous and diminishes into various shutdowns of free living, that key point is still true.)
Anyway, yesterday I walked about the house (still waiting for the sidewalks to clear though some places like the university can be walked most of the year) for my main exercise–over 6,000 steps. I did some other exercises, too. I read a fair bit and in the evening watched part 2 of the 2018 BBC Civilisations series, and expanded my imagination, love of art and history, and understanding of life and human nature considerably.
My head was pretty full by bedtime, but I put on the headphones and listened a while to readings of William Wordsworth’s great poems including “Tintern Abbey” and “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. This only confirmed the importance of keeping one’s faculties, heart, spirits, and language up via great poetry, in this case. It was also a reconnection to my past self and high-school and university experience: even further ripples.
It was Walt Whitman who once said “I am large…I contain multitudes.” Many of the greatest possibilities are those realized by our personal consciousness of who we are and the depths of life and soul experience. We have worlds within us, said Whitman, regardless of the outside ‘noise, babble, and external limits or limitations. So very true, eh?
…………………………….
ps/I will also put in good words for diet, movement, fresh air, and being out in Nature. And humor and wit–God bless Peter Sellers, Peter Ustinov, and Jonathan Winters.
……………………………
A Compendium of ‘Elevating’, Edifying, Spiritual Sources and Works
(complete works of Shakespeare and a fascinating word-related resource)
(complete works of Beethoven)
(the great art and architecture of Michelangelo)
(inspiring biographical stories from history/herstory such as those of Rachel Carson, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Joseph Campbell, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi)
(great relevant fiction such as Orwell’s classic 1984)
(the best of jazz including Armstrong, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, and Stan Getz)
(filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, and Orson Welles who have large significant bodies of work)
(likewise, the great composers such as Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Strauss that have large bodies of timeless classical works)
(the classic works of imaginative literature such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Ray Bradbury’s short stories, and the tales of Edgar Allan Poe)
(the great Impressionist art of van Gogh, Monet, and others)
(the profound women writers of the English and American literature)
(the large-catalogued poet-songwriters like Dylan, Cohen, Simon, and Joni Mitchell)
(the truly funny, witty humorists of the world like Ustinov, Sellers, Winters, Williams, and Chaplin)
(the genius designer-architects like Frank Lloyd Wright)
(the top indigenous artists)
(the many classic novels of all time including the above)
(the many great cultural thinkers and conscious thought-provokers such as those above)
Kenny Rogers, 81.
“You’ve painted up your lips and rolled and curled your tinted hair…”
–“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”
“It wasn’t me that started that old crazy Asian war…”
“It’s hard to love a man whose legs are bent and paralyzed…”
“She’s leavin’ now ’cause I just heard the slammin’ of the door…”
So what’s your favorite Kenny Rogers song?
Looking back, I have many personal markers and signposts as do many people. My uncanny ability though, is to be able to recall pop songs by date and circumstances in which I first heard them. Often, too, how hearing those for the first time made me feel.
1953/age 4: at an afternoon movie theatre with my mother seeing Doris Day in the film Calamity Jane and recalling the close-ups of her singing “Secret Love”
1954: my Dad’s 78 rpm playing of “Hernando’s Hideaway”: “I know a dark secluded place…”, the piano solo, and the way it fascinated me with talk of things well beyond my limited pre-school experience
summer 1954: my mother calling me home whenever “This Ole House” was on the radio
summer 1955: in the old Winnipeg bus depot cafe with my Dad and the jukebox creating the many magical illusions of The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman”
spring 1955: after seeing the Disney cult movie Davy Crockett, hearing the star Fess Parker singing the “Ballad of Davy Crockett” on the radio; listening to it in a coonskin cap
summer 1955: walking down Thompson Drive to nearby Portage Avenue from my grandmother’s house where we lived for a year 1956; going outside on a sunny morning after hearing Mitch Miller’s rousing “The Yellow Rose of Texas”
1956: watching my parents dance around the small living room in our Wallasey Street house to the 78 rpm of “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom”; my Dad always liked trumpet songs; a decade later, he loved Herb Alpert’s songs
summer 1956: seeing Gogi Grant sing “The Wayward Wind” on our new b & w tv; years later, listening to my father-in-law sing it for his sister in our family room–her saying “I didn’t know you could sing”; in the 2010s, playing the Grant hit for him at his funeral service
Sept. 1956/age 7: seeing Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show singing “Hound Dog” and “Don’t Be Cruel”; running outside afterward into the freshness of a still sunny Sunday evening
winter 1956-57: hearing “Green Door” on a Sunday morning radio show while reading the color comics, wondering what was behind the green door; the mystery of the song
Feb.-Mar. 1957: fascinated by Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat”: “Daylight come and me wanna go home”; also hearing Sonny James “Young Love” for the first time; later buying the 45 rpm when I was about 10-11
March 1957: my teen aunt was living with us and introduced me to LPs and 4 song EPs (45 rpm)–Johnny Cash; she had Buddy Knox’s lp which had “Party Doll” and Hula Love”, rockabilly stuff; the Canadian group The Diamonds were funny–saw them on Ed Sullivan Show, mugging and the funny guy singing “lalalala” in a high voice
Oct. 1957: Johnny Mathis’s “Chances Are” echoing everywhere; maybe 4 years later I was hanging at the school after hours one summer evening and an older boy took me to his house and played the Mathis song under lamplight!?
summer 1959: on a Sunday at my Dad’s childhood friend’s house and he impressed us with his new stereo record player, playing us Mancini’s sexy “Peter Gunn” (from a popular tv show which used jazz) and the Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley”–which introduced the hootenany era
summer 1959: my aunt’s 45 rpm of Lloyd Price’s big sounding “Personality”–a call response song; playing it in the living room of our house setting off my dog Scamp every time Price said “walk” or “talk”
Oct. 1959: my aunt’s 45 rpm of the drum hit “Teen Beat” which inspired so many kids to take up drums; later in gr. 9, I bought up all of Nelson’s main lps just to hear the featured drum solos; living in apt. at this time, there was a fat chance that I’d ever get a set, but I remained a drum fan through the Jimi Hendrix and Cream trio years.
Jan. 1960: watching Marty Robbins sing “El Paso” on tv, engaging with the storyline, empathizing with the shot-down protagonist
summer 1960: hearing the Brothers Four “Greenfields” echoing from my 2 transistor radio as I delivered newspapers to the old houses on Wallasey St. and Thompson Dr.
summer 1960: speaking of drums, hearing from my radio the military introduction to “Cathy’s Clown”, my favorite Everly Brothers’ hit–their first for Warner Bros., at the corner of Thompson Dr. and Lodge Ave.
fall 1960: playing one of my first 45 rpms in the kitchen of a friend: “Alley Oop”
fall 1960: listening attentively to the funny dramatic story of “Mr. Custer” in our kitchen on the radio; a lot of songs were stories and dramas that you could imagine yourself in
Jan. 1961: another story song “North to Alaska” sounded loud and big as did all the memorable radio hits of the day; this made me want to see the movie, but I wouldn’t see it till I was an adult some 25 years later; then the lyrics all made sense: “big Sam left Seattle in the year of ’92…”; I should also point out Johnny Horton’s first hit “Ballad of New Orleans” which made me–similar to the Elvis experience–after seeing it performed on the Ed Sullivan Show run outside my house afterward, full of the largeness of the buoyant experience; powerful stuff, music
summer 1961: I made my first solo trip downtown to Lillian Lewis Records, which had just opened on a Saturday beside the Mall Hotel, to buy 3-45 rpm hits: B, Bumble’s “Bumble Boogie”, the Marcels’ “Blue Moon”, and Floyd Cramer’s “On the Rebound”; interesting that two of these were instrumentals
End of Part 1.
I’ll conclude by saying that my parents let me use their record player when I was only 3. From 3-5, my mother used to plunk me down in front of the cathedral radio-record player we had while she popped out for errands so I was exposed to a lot of daytime radio shows and music. I can still recall being scared by Stan Freberg’s “Dear John” with its spooky and overwrought radio drama-style laughter.
Music has been at least half my life. I later learned to play guitar during the Hootenany-Beatles era (gr. 10 on) and started playing for audiences in grade 12 into my university years. For one year (1968), I fronted a folk trio featuring now-T.O.jazz saxist Glen Hall and former Burton Cummings’ bassist Ian Gardiner. I was also a solo folk singer and fronted a folk quartet, Clover, around Winnipeg in 1969-70).
In Edmonton, I did some solo folk gigs at a local coffeehouse, then led and played 3 years in a duo, a trio, and quartet in Grand Centre (now Cold Lake). I would do annual performances at Edmonton schools I taught in from 1975 to 2002. My last gig was for a government picnic a few years back and the chops were still good then.
Yeah, music has still plays a huge role in my life. I listen to it daily and have quite the collection of the old folk, rock, jazz, and classical. My tastes broadened over the years. I should also mention that I wrote some 20 songs, which were praise by the likes of Glen Campbell’s manager, Rita McNeil, and Jack Richardson–the first producer of The Guess Who.
I may come back to finish the ’60s memories of individual songs, time permitting….
(The record collector seller of old wares a few years ago)
“Everything hinges upon our realizing the essential transitory possibilities.”
–Viktor Frankl
“Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities–always see them, for they are always there.”
–Norman Vincent Peale
“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”
–John Burroughs
“Change is the law of life.”
–John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“In our rapidly changing society we can count on only two things that will never change. What will never change is the will to change and the fear of change.”
–Harriet Goldhor Lerner
“The world is too much with us: late and soon,/getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”
–William Wordsworth
“Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.”
–Henry David Thoreau
“Technology will never love you. Screens will never love you.”
–Richard Davies
“Common sense is very uncommon.”
–Horace Greeley
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
–Proverbs
“Hope is essential; human beings can’t live long without it. When hope is taken away, people become so depressed that no matter what the outcome, their lives are miserable.”
–Stephanie Matthews Simonton
“An unexamined life is not worth living.”
–Socrates
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
–Henry David Thoreau
“Most of one’s life is a prolonged effort to avoid thinking.”
–Aldous Huxley
“Humankind/Cannot bear much reality.”
–T.S. Eliot
“Great thoughts come from the heart.”
–Marquis de Vauvenargues
“The goal of the journey is to discover yourself as consciousness.”
–Joseph Campbell
“Be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.”
–Buddha
“What you risk reveals what you value.”
–Jeanette Winterson
“In delay there lies no plenty.”
–William Shakespeare
“The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.”
–George Eliot
“A man can do all things if he will.”
–Leon Battista Alberti
“You have to take care of yourself and look after yourself first, especially if you expect to look out for and take care of others.”
–Richard Davies
“If it is to be, it is up to me.”
–Shirley Hutton
“The proper study of mankind is books.”
–Aldous Huxley
“The best antidote I have found is to yearn for something. As long as you can learn, you can’t congeal; there is a forward motion to yearning.”
–Gail Godwin
“Music is the best means of digesting time.”
–W.H. Auden
“Art serves to rinse out our eyes.”
–Karl Kraus
“Poetry is a perfectly reasonable means of overcoming chaos.”
–I.A. Richards
“To live poetically is to densify life.”
–Vilhelm Ekelund
“Love seeketh not itself to please.”
–William Blake
“Touch is the meaning of being human.”
–Andrea Dworkin
“Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.”
–Tennessee Williams
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
–Albert Einstein
“I am large….I contain multitudes.”
–Walt Whitman
“A multitude of small delights constitutes happiness.”
–Charles Baudelaire
“That is happiness, to be dissolved into something complete and great.”
–Willa Cather
“There is only one happiness in life–to love and be loved.”
–George Sand
“We can’t rid the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy.”
–Joseph Campbell
“Cheer up–it can only get worse.”
–Pearl Bailey
“If you want to be happy, be.”
–Leo Tolstoy
Marcus Aurelius: “The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.”
Rene Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.”
Antoine Arnauld: “Men are everywhere confronted with alternative routes–some true and others false–and reason must choose between them. Who chooses well has a sound mind, who chooses ill a defective one. Capacity for discerning the truth is the most important measure of minds.”
Mary Wollstonecraft: “The neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore.”
John Stuart Mill: “Actions are right in proportion as they promote happiness, wrong as they produce the reverse.”
Martin Heidegger: It is only in full awareness of our own mortality that life can take on any purposive meaning. (summarized)
Jean-Paul Sartre: It is up to the individual to choose the life s/he thinks best. (summarized)
Kurt Godel: The human mind is capable of working out truths that no mechanical procedure can decide. (summarized)
Spring wanted to
come, honest,
like a slow-moving
antediluvian brain
over a white
receding tundra.
It was all about
timing, apparently
and the ebb and flow
of atoms globally.
Nation-state borders
dissolved as you
looked at them
McLuhanesquely on
whatever maps remaining.
Gazes quite froze to
screens and never-ending
press conferences,
dire counselling and
imploding economies.
1929–here we come.
I watched the sparrows
descend desperate
on my morning offering,
the squirrel asleep,
though the sky
felt soft blue so early
in this otherwise world
of gutted knowns
and defeated dreams.
“Poetry is a perfectly reasonable means of overcoming chaos.” –I.A. Richards
The movies: Ship of Fools (1965) and Voyage of the Damned (1976), relative to all the current cruise ship crises.
My parents before I was born.
