To thine own self be true

“Otherwise” is a reflective poem by Jane Kenyon in which the poet looks at her life and appreciates various details and aspects–many of them sensuous–knowing that one day her life will be different, greatly circumscribed, limited, or naught at all. In that, an honest, truthful perspective of a person’s life within the limited and limiting whirligig of time, which catches one up as described in Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game”.

No question most people are caught up, busy, doing much, sometimes for others, often just to make money, with the underlying, recurring, nagging feeling of chasing one’s own tail or someone else’s conventional, “supposed to be that way” plan.

Moving forward is a good thing–progressing and positively changing, while enjoying and appreciating life and others But he rest of it?

Well, these are things each person must answer for him/herself.

I think Kenyon is basically right, though. We must learn to immerse in our passing time and days to find comfort and meaning in the simplest of things–typically those things of no interest to bankers, politicians, administrators, governments, corporations, bosses, and all the people who have agendas for us and are quite prepared to use us for their own self-aggrandizing, egoic ends and schemes.

As I have often remarked, If we don’t look after ourselves, who else will? And, Is “entitlements” necessarily an entirely dirty word? Are we not, each of us, entitled to as much freedom as we can eke out? Are we not entitled, too, to live our lives without always answering to or catering to others? Are we not entitled to whatever solitude, happiness, and transcendence we can personally experience?

These are no small things– the engagements, pleasures, and meanings which will one day no longer be possible as sure as death and taxes. The three things that can spin and end on a dime–such as a fall, a car accident, or sudden, unexpected serious illness.

Living in the here-and-now makes most sense, of course, but one should also keep a weather eye on “Otherwise”, and how sad or tragic it would be not to have said, done, or explored something we really wanted to in our secret lives, our heart of hearts. Those possibilities which tease and haunt us every passing Christmas.

Full moon! A found picture and unsent note from Dean McKenzie, The Legend, in 1992.

Spiritus (an Edmonton performance poetry trio): Dean on right, Glen Kirkland in the middle, and me on the left).

Note: “Hail Spiritus! Its genesis takes on even more mythic qualities as our hejira toward truth and beauty continues.”                                                                                              Spiritus had a fabulous, wonderful run over two decades. And I have no doubt that Glen’s and Dean’s hejiras toward truth and beauty continue elsewhere as much as mine does here, likewise.

Very special thanks to Elana Hope Aaserud for finding and sharing this special moment of being–Dean’s gift of self beyond time. Trust Dean-o to speak to her, me, and us from another, transcendent, spiritual dimension. Remarkably, Daddio is still happy, intact and with us this Christmas–giving of himself as always.

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Joan Fontaine, 96. Hard to imagine anyone else playing her memorable roles in Rebecca, Suspicion, and Jane Eyre. An interesting lady who could not remember a single nice thing from childhood about her actress-sister Olivia–which probably had something to do with their fall-out from early on. She was, however, her own person and spurned many proposals, living out her remaining days (like Doris Day) peacefully with her dogs. A nice, quiet, old-school integrity.

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
–Bob Dylan, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, Bringing It All Back Home

……………………………………                                                                                                    December 1965. Xmas break. A mere 48 years ago, in grade 10, that I first heard the complete version of the Byrds’ hit “Mr. Tambourine Man”, which they downsized from Dylan’s original four verses. That was when I heard The Tambourine Man’s call for the very first time and my life was changed forever. Somehow, that cold late December in Winnipeg, I knew that what I most wanted was to be that free in my life–a condition that I lived and experienced often in the past half-century through love, music, writing, poetry, and in whatever freedom I have been able to eke out for myself–wonderfully rich, unique, and different from most of the conventional lives and people that I met over my adult years.

In this last verse and the others preceding of his classic song, Dylan lays out the possibilities of life for the arts-based individuals and wanna-be poets, songwriters, and musicians of my generation. He says, gloriously, that, Yes, all this joy, dream-freedom, and fulfillment are possible for the more sensitive creative souls who want to live an autonomous life via imagination’s dreams, music, and words–a rich, free inner life which is complete unto itself and answers to no one else.

Over the years, I have come back time and time again to Dylan’s beautiful, rapturous, heartfelt folk song to rediscover myself and my main life’s purpose–what I once was and still aspire to these decades later in a world hugely, forever changed. As Dylan says in a previous verse:

I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade/Unto my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,/I promise to go under it.

“The readiness is all.” That is most who and what I am and have been, finally, happily. Like Dylan, just a person who long ago heard and still dances with and to The Tambourine Man on that magical beach eternally beyond time.

Peter O’Toole, 81.

He was Lawrence.

Great director David Lean had a passion for making films about nutcases.
In O’Toole, he found the perfect Lawrence: sensitive and wonderfully strange.

Etc.:

O’Toole long outlived his drinking buddy–the great Richard Burton, whose health gave out much earlier.

I think the quintessential O’Toole can be found in Woody Allen’s What’s New Pussycat? in which Burton does a lounge cameo.

Despite 8 misses for Best Actor, O’Toole did, finally receive an honorary Oscar.

We’ll not see his like again.

(The forever possibility)

Away! Away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy.
–John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”

Dumbass yahoos at Elk Island Park shooting paintballs at traumatized bison.

Elsewhere, coyotes being shot at by a father-son team from a helicopter no less. An evil apprenticeship absurdly wreaked on the innocent, unsuspecting.

Man’s inhumanity to Nature continues to make countless millions mourn….

Hamlet’s  “paragon of animals”–Not!!

The splendor of two gigantic creative bursts of imagination and their deep warm kinetic affects on a frigid morning soul…(Edmo, Dec. 14/2012)

Mine this morning was Dovie, a cute, very pleasant, friendly young woman from the Philippines. I have long found Filipinos to be a very friendly, kind, hard-working, upbeat, helpful people by and large, from my contacts with them in the coffee, fast food, and medical areas. (The best, most impressive, hands-on caregivers of any culture I can think of.)

No, I had not a second of hesitation in contributing to the recent Phllippines disaster relief via the Red Cross (which always does the best work of any charity in various crises).

………………….

Retroly, I will add Arnel from Smitty’s. A true gentleman.

Fudge was born in 1990 A.D. at Strathcona High In Edmonton. I’d played solo and with several groups from 1967 to 1975, and had put on teacher musical acts from 1972 to 1989, but Fudge was something different with a fairly regular core of myself (rhythm guitar, vocals), my percussion machine (SR-16 which had a phantom supporting illusion of bass sound) Ken Klause (piano, vocals), and later Ken Kulka (lead guitar). Klause, SR-16, and I were the first pieces of the aggregate. We were quickly doing songwriting and giving impromptu performances, initially, in the Scona hallway, later in the Scona Room, and gym–eventually branching out to Strathcona cafes such as Café le Gare and the Blue Nile (where we did love-themed readings and performances), and later the Scona stags, staff house parties, and the 2003 grad–the last K-K-R gig.

Thousands of kids, staff, and the local artsy public enjoyed the various shows. Klause and I briefly considered doing a lounge act (which would have worked–I’d done that kind of extra-curricular work before, but did not miss the smoke and drunks) which, in any case, led to some potential publicity photos (top left).

The Fudge hallway concerts (top right), beginning in 1990, were wild and fun with kids sitting or standing around. They were impressed by some of the hipness of our choices (“Light My Fire”, “Takin’ Care of Business”,”Tears in Heaven”, “Sultans of Swing” with letter-perfect guitar by Kulka) and the K-K-R trio soon packed the Scona Room–middle pictures– (with photo coverage, twice, by the Edmonton Examiner). *The sign, incidentally, was a leftover prop from my August Company production of 60 Minutes Live from Loon River! , performed at the 1989 Fringe Festival.

It was often hard to ‘come down’ after a noonhour or morning breakfast show at the school, to switch gears and teach! We generally did at least one student show per year for 13 years. As has often been remarked, teachers then had a lot more fun and autonomy, and enhanced the learning, spirits, and morale of everyone who worked those special years at Scona. To wit, the last picture which is from a Scona stag, a wonderful, noble, spirited tradition which had a long, good run, and in which Fudge played a prominent role in the later years.

There are many stories (the origin of the group name, who was the real Fudge), songs, souvenir t-shirts, wild live show cassette recordings, and a zillion happy musical times associated with this band. But the above will be enough to positively affect the quality of a Friday the 13th blizzard in frozen north Edmo. Yes, it was all about the shared, mutual gifts of self and music’s possibilities via live musical performances once upon a time….

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