To thine own self be true

In the bank vestibule early this morning, a street guy fast asleep on the hard floor with an empty chip bag beside him. Must have been his late night snack or supper yesterday.

“Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-coloured snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.”
–Dylan Thomas, conclusion of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”

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May all the children of this world enjoy a similar, civilized, peaceful, happy Christmas without hunger, violence and fear.

A mad, frenzied dash to the ‘finish line’ by Albertans who still have jobs.

Will finally be judged by the physical destruction he has brought to Edmonton, the ultimately unfinished LRT, and by the litany of crazy projects city council has wasted time and money on from expensive dedicated bike lanes to widespread, irrational calcium-spraying destroying our roads, sidewalks, vehicles, and pedestrians. What was once a nice-looking city in reasonable condition has been mindlessly torn apart by one ‘nice guy’ and his stupid cohorts. Never should an enthusiastic, unproven ‘greener’ ever have been trusted with the keys to this city.

the ‘conscientious’, elitist absentee brown/blackface PM who did not deserve a second term. He is the biggest fake PM in our history. Fake feminist. Fake diversity promoter. A massive, vacuous zero who has never said anything but b.s.

The 1988 black and white film rescued from the “Dead Sea Scrolls of Jazz” featuring live performances and documentary footage produced by Clint Eastwood, directed by important ’60s filmmaker Charlotte Zwerin. We see Thelonious Monk in the studio, on tour, and behind the scenes, featuring many excerpts from his atonal classics and interviews with those who worked with him.

To put it mildly, you have never heard (jazz) music quite like this. Monk’s brilliant composing was ‘way outside’ in terms of (piano) jazz and live playing. You see other musicians backing him up trying to decipher his ‘charts’, even going on tour without a clue of what the sets and numbers will be. You see Monk impromptuly spinning around in circles onstage, in airports, in all sorts of rooms; his midlife schizophrenia literally and figuratively put him in another space, another world, and helps to explain his musical sensibility and totally unique approach to jazz composition and live playing.

This is easily the most unique musical documentary ever made on a one-of-a-kind jazz legend who once graced the cover of TIME magazine. Recommended for anyone seriously interested in music, composing, jazz, jazz legends, and (spontananeous) atonal music.

(The cover and illustrations are by Thoreau MacDonald, artist-son of Group of 7 painter J.E.H. MacDonald)

This time around I am reading a delightful account of a Maine farm in 1948. The author uses a lot of descriptive detail and focuses on the simple goings-on at his farm. What comes across memorably is the image-full context of Nature as seasons change. I am thoroughly enjoying this immersive portrait of Nature and its relationship with this New England couple’s lifestyle. The book is bringing back many memories of winter for this prairie boy’s Inner Child.

for kids.

I was five-years-old. We were living a year with my father’s mother in a big old house on Thompson Drive, then in the outskirts of St. James with only Kirkfield Park west of us. My grandmother always had men rooming with her and one of them, Matt, a large gruff man, was very ill and somewhat angry about having me around the house. My parents were working in the day then and I was probably getting underfoot so my grandmother sent me outside to play on a cold windy day on the snow-covered garden plot beside the house (I presume she didn’t want me to wander off).

I may have had a sled, but mostly was digging about in the drifts. She would call me in later for Howdy Doody, a popular ’50s tv program for kids in the late afternoon. Anyway, as I tried to play in the snow, I imaginatively transferred Matt’s condition to myself there outside and pondered what it might be like to die. I finally decided that it would be better to die in the house watching Howdy Doody, and then my grandmother called me in.

Just a few moments ago, this afternoon almost 60 years later, lying on the couch in the darkened living room, the big tree ablaze with glorious lights and decorations, listening to the holy-voiced English choirs of the excellent Christmas 101 CD, singing carols and other seasonal music I had not heard for many a year, thinking ‘Yes, this would be a fine way to go. I could not imagine a better exit at Christmas time.’ Until I remembered a five year-old-boy playing by himself for what seemed like hours, imagining a better, more perfect finale–while watching Howdy Doody.

In deep November there is disbelief
A loss of faith that winter, not yet here,
Will go about its business and be brief.
Instead the season generates a fear
That winter, once in place will stay that way
Forever–cold and bleak, cheerless and stark–
As icy blasts relentlessly hold sway,
Consigning us forever to the dark.
But then December comes along, and lo!
What lights are these that sparkle, clear and bright?
Instead of darkness, there’s a happy glow
Of red and green that glistens through the night,
And where we feared that coldness might prevail
The warmth of love tells quite a different tale!

–R. Glenn Martin

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Glenn was my ED Curriculum and Instruction ( i.e., how to teach English) prof at U of A in 1971-2 A.D. He published my first articles in Alberta English, notably one on Canadian literature. Glenn was a generally genial gentleman and a long-time friend. He was a Harvard grad and took a class with Robert Frost who encouraged the students to write poetry. (Frost sent him a Christmas card.) Glenn and I shared a great love of poetry and we often talked of Emily Dickinson. In his last good year, I escorted him to the Edmonton Symphony and we dined out each time. The last time I saw him in hospital, he was happily in his own world, but sort of recognized me and whistled (quite accurately) the melody of a Beethoven piece. (His favorite composer on whom he lectured via a U of Ex Extension class.) It was my honour to read the eulogy at his funeral. He was a brilliant, witty, kind man who talked me into staying in my first/junior high student teaching round when I wanted to quit. After that, I was the only one who ever sent him a Xmas card every year, something he noted and appreciated. One of my literary heroes and major influences, remembered this winter morn.