December 1, 2022- As the wedding reception of my sister and brother-in-law was winding down, in June, 1978, the catchy neo-disco vibes, from a new version of a band I’d heard many years back, filled the air and were quite familiar to many others in the reception hall. It was Fleetwood Mac, a British band which had relocated to California, and added Arizona’s own Stevie Nicks and her Texas-born on-again, off-again partner, Lindsey Buckingham, to the front line. Lindsey led the group in that particular song, “Monday Morning”, for some reason reminding me of The Monkees, though I kept that thought to myself.
His vocals stuck with me, over the years, and any resemblance to the tv band faded with time. More melifluous, and equally withstanding the test of time, however, were the vocals of one of the band’s founders: Christine McVie, who died yesterday. She was born into a family with the surname Perfect, and her voice made that family name a quite apt one. Marrying, and later divorcing, her bandmate John McVie, she kept his family name, throughout her time with Fleetwood Mac and through her solo career.
It’s hard to imagine FM without her, though other bands-The Who, Steely Dan and The Beach Boys have soldiered on, after the loss of one or more of their signature members. The group most recently has seemingly devolved into a cover band, particularly following Lindsey Buckingham’s departure a few years back. Christine was both muse and bard for much of the group’s repertoire, telling the tales of her own adventures and misadventures, in the world of romance.
Perhaps nowhere does her view of life play out more clearly than in the 1987 classic, “Everywhere”. Its period piece video is a scene of persistence. Rest in perfection, Christine.
November 26, 2022, Grapevine- We walked through the mist, which reminded me more of Honolulu than Dallas. After three days of more or less being housebound, we set out for Re:defined Coffee House, a popular hangout, at the edge of downtown Grapevine. There, we sat for nearly an hour, and discussed a game plan for the rest of the day, over coffee and small donuts.
The next stage was to go and watch the film, “Spirited”, a sit was a musical comedy, which appealed more to Yunhee. Basically, it is loosely-based on “A Christmas Carol”, by way of “Scrooged” and “Oliver!”,with a bit of time travel thrown in-because, spirits can do that. It was entertaining, but alas, would have been more meaningful to DIL, had there been Korean subtitles. In time, that will be available via streaming.
Next, was a rare mid-afternoon meal-this one at Mom’s Cafe, a Korean restaurant, in Carrollton. This was a throwback to days in the motherland, Hankook. Here were Bibimbap: Chicken and egg, with sliced spinach, carrot and mushroom, on a bed of steamed rice, served in a hot stone bowl and dressed with gochujang (hot pepper sauce); a Korean pancake, with scallion, squid meat and garlic; side dishes, such as cabbage and scallion kimchi, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, sliced fishcake;and bori cha (hot barley water). My meal came with miso, the wondrous Japanese soup that serves as a soothing digestive aid.
Finally, on the way back to Home Base II, we happened by Rockledge Park, Grapevine’s taste of the Great Lakes. It had stopped raining, so we headed out along North Shore Trail, being careful to steer clear of the slippery caliche. We walked past a small, intrepid wedding party, up along short, but well-defined sandstone ledges, reminiscent of some of the shore front I encountered, years ago, on the north side of Lake Superior. (Photos by Aram will be available for a later post, and we may return there tomorrow, in which case I will have my own camera at the ready.)
Nonetheless, Lake Grapevine, impressive when approaching DFW International Airport from the northwest, is equally fascinating on the ground. The rain did not keep us housebound.
November 20, 2022- As I sat with two young siblings, in a friend’s apartment, they began drawing and then painting, images on cloth canvas squares. The kids did marvelous depictions of Pokemon characters and yin/yang symbols. My friend asked if I wanted to do a canvas of my own, which sounded like fun. I did a free-style depiction of a prehistoric bird, using a few colours: Red torso, black beak and legs, yellow tuft and green head. I would be surprised if any actual bird looked like that, but it was a nice, light activity.
It did get me thinking about the thunderbird, a common mythological creature of North America, ascribed by Algonquian-speaking peoples in the Pacific Northwest, eastern Canada, the northeast United States and the Great Lakes region, with thunderous wing-flapping and the ability to hurl lightning at giant serpents and other underwater creatures. It was said that thunderbirds ruled the land and sky, whilst serpents and underwater panthers shared the underworld. I heard about thunderbirds, growing up, and while they remain fanciful, the colour scheme has a polyglot, rainbow quality (Northwest) or has blue-black feathers.
The mythological nature of the beast, in turn, reminded me of the superhuman powers that we sometimes ascribe to actual creatures-even to the microbial level. I have fought a hard, but somewhat manageable, cold, over the past four days. It is at the point now, where it is subsiding and there is only a smidgen of mucous, itself clear. This is what I refer to as change-of-seasonitis, and it has usually showed up, around late October. My ailment has none of the symptoms attributed to COVID-19, and does remind me, pure and simple , of other bad colds I’ve had this time of year. The thunder is subsiding now,thankfully, and with a good rest and hydration, I will be fine for Tuesday’s flight.
October 23, 2022, Carson City- The would-be hostess apologized for being too ill to let us enter. The devotional, scheduled for this afternoon, would also have fit the definition of community conference, which is an integral part of the Baha’i plan for the nine years 2022-2031. We can focus on building community, strengthening relationships, with all people.
Leaving that residence, the four of us, two children, their grandmother and me, headed instead to a Mexican-style ice cream parlour: Michoacan A Pedir de Boca. It was cold outside, but no matter- I was more than glad to treat my hosts to some of the best confections to come out of the Mexican state of Michoacan.
They next decided to head to a nearby WalMart, usually not my idea of a good time, but with kids, anything can become fun. Most of the time was spent in the crafts section, with a bit of food shopping at the end. The 3.8 year-old is into clocks and bells. He spotted a red numerical analog clock, and was able to tell the time. So, it became his, along with a Pre-Kindergarten activity book, covering a variety of learning skills. His older sister, who has been like a grandniece to me, from the day she was born, and whose birthday is tomorrow, will get a few books to pique her interest. For V, though, the main thing she wants from anyone in her life is connection, and the knowledge that she means a lot to those around her. That is a given, and will remain so, as long as I draw breath.
It has only been a huge life-affirming element for me to have been connected to this family, since the mid-1980s. Penny felt the same way. They are, collectively, among three such clans, besides my own biological extended family, to whom I have an ineradicable tie. I can see, because of the strength this has given me, that the number of such families will only grow, as time goes on.
October 20, 2022, Winnemucca, NV- The flustered housekeeper felt she was behind schedule and would be on the outs with her motel’s exacting owner. She had mopped the floor in the room, and had moved a large table “temporarily” over the HVAC unit. She then moved on to the next room, leaving table over HVAC.
Evening guest is delighted with the large table, but can only see the cooling part of the unit. Since many motels have separate heating and cooling units, guest thinks that maybe the owner will seek to save money, by putting a space heater in, but just hasn’t put it in yet, as it’s not that cold.
The desk clerk, making the rounds to get a morning check-out count, explains the situation to the guest, who is no worse for the wear, after a mild night. Guest checks out and housekeeper sheepishly goes in to move the table to its rightful place.
So started a day that brought me to downtown Boise, including a welcoming State Capitol and very pleasant pedestrian mall. Security in the Capitol building is adequate and not overbearing. There were few other visitors today, so my walk around and visits to all five floors were unhurried and allowed for focused reading of the various panels on Idaho’s history and its governmental organization-which is similar to that of most states.
All public building tours start with the garden.
The gardens here are touted as being low maintenance. The flower beds are small, but varied in colour- if understatedlly so.
The building itself is majestic, if smaller than some state capitols.
Idaho State Capitol, north viewIdaho State Capitol, south viewStatue of Nike, Idaho State CapitolGeorge Washington, Idaho State CapitolInterior dome, Idaho State Capitol
This is only the third state capitol I’ve ever toured on the inside. The other two were Massachusetts’-in 1964, and Texas’, in 2012. It was reassuring that there was not a wall of security regarded as necessary.
Boise’s 8th Street pedestrian mall features dozens of shops and restaurants, along two long blocks.
It was lunchtime, and I opted for a couple of slices, from the indelicately-named Pie Hole, which nonetheless turned out innovative, but tasty, vegetarian pizza. A nice touch is that kids, having the week off, for Fall Break, were safely walking around and enjoying the mall-much as we did as children. After pizza, I opted for a cup of sheep’s milk ice cream, from Negranti Creamery, which is actually a California import. The fare is not as creamy as cow’s milk, but does please the palate.
It is a nice touch that the most impressive large building in downtown Boise, after the government facilities, is an innovative apartment building: Idanha. It used to be the rail station area’s hotel.
Moderate housing in downtown Boise
Once out of the urban precincts, it was time to look, however briefly, at the Owyhee region’s stark beauty. Thus, as the title of this post indicates, I followed a dirt road to the Pillars of Rome. Settlers named it so, as the canyon walls reminded them of Roman temple architecture. It was too hot when I got to Jordan Valley, and so I passed on a climb up Pharmacy Hill. A brief view of the impressive canyon walls, north of Rome, OR, 20 miles further west,was a fine surprise stand-in.
Here are a couple of shots of the eastern section of the Pillars.
East Rim of the Pillars of RomeEast Rim, Pillars of Rome
Others have posted more detailed accounts of this area, so I would be glad to spend more time here, on a future journey this way.
October 1, 2022- He once held court, while sitting up in the fold-out bed at our home in Jeddito, Arizona. It was the mid-1990s, and things were fairly good. Tokaya Inajin, better known as Kevin Locke, was succeeding in popularizing hoop dancing, and making the meaning behind the art form clear to all who attended his performances.
He was also a fine singer, a true champion of the Lakota Sioux people, from whom he emerged. Yet, he eschewed violence and saw fit to reach out to all people, reminding everyone that the four colours of humanity were equal before the Creator. His take, like mine, was that no one be excluded, even if they themselves sought to exclude. It was a learning process, which involved a fair amount of unlearning.
Tokaya Inajin, “The First to Arise”, in Lakota, was as proud of his mainstream name and activities, as he was of being part of a First Nation. He embraced a variety of musical styles, following in the footsteps of other First Nations musicians whom he admired, but staying true to the message that his mother’s people had a central part to play in stewardship of the Earth. To that end, illustrating the Hoop of Life was his central muse.
Kevin left us, yesterday, to join the spirits who watch over those still engaged in the work of that stewardship. His presence here was a blessing, from start to finish.
Here is an example of his work, from a visit he made to the Miccosukee Nation.
September 24, 2022- The little girl, no more than two, came up to me while I was sitting in my “director’s chair”, at the large music festival. She tried to climb on my lap, which, as I knew neither her nor her mother, I gently declined. Her mother came over and led her back to the spot where she was preparing the child’s stroller. With mother so occupied, the girl came right back, and tried again. This time, both mother and I explained that this was not something she should be doing. There was no yelling or finger-wagging, just gentle dissuasion. Conversely, while the mother said I should have ignored her daughter, that, too, is something one doesn’t do to a person who is experiencing so much, for the first time in her life. I feel that I have a duty before the Creator to lovingly assist other people, especially children, to the best of my ability.
Earlier today, a small group of us honoured a revered community leader and beekeeper, on the first anniversary of his passing. There was a man who embodied loving assistance to all he met. Even the bank manager, who oversaw his mortgage, was given instructions on what to do with his house-upon the occasion of said passage. Hopefully, those instructions were followed and the home sold to the certain type of family who would honour its feng shui. The bees themselves were carefully dispersed to various other apiaries, prior to GK’s passing.
I went from the memorial service to VortiFest, in Sedona, particularly to meet up with a friend I had not seen in 2 1/2 years and to possibly see other friends from the Synergy/Apotheca complex. The centerpiece, for me, of the music festival, was an appearance by Camille Sledge, the scion of Sister Sledge, and her band, Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra. Camille, as it turned out, was off, touring with her mother and aunts, so PAO’s superbly talented instrumentalists managed a delightful and rousing 45 minutes of non-vocal ear candy, and got many of us, up and jumping around, much as they and Camille did, when I first heard them, four years ago.
That set was what brought about a brief encounter with a Sedona friend, that puzzles me, even as I write this. She greeted me, danced around for a bit, then spent the rest of the set alternately acting like she was scared to death of me and that I no longer existed. I will refrain from trying to explain that, other than I am aware of certain threats to her safety, from someone other than myself. He could have been around and have made his presence known to her. For a good part of the rest of the Festival, she was escorted by other men, including one of the security detail members, so who knows? For my part, I would not harm a hair of anyone’s head, much less a dearly loved friend of three years.
My newly re-connected friend served as a reality check on the whole matter, cautioning against personalizing the incident, in any way, shape or form. I followed her advice, knowing that forming a narrative, based on incomplete information, is worse than a fool’s errand. So, I headed homeward, ahead of the mass exodus that was sure to happen after the last set of the festival. Even having parked in a smaller lot, across the highway, I would have been stuck in the scrum of traffic, had I stayed to hear the last, excellent band.
Besides Afrobeat, there were two other fabulous bands that I did encounter: One was the festival founder’s group, simply named “Decker”. The other was a group called “G-Love”, which offered several peace-themed tunes, that were nonetheless rousing, and which had what seemed to be 2/3 of the audience standing and bouncing, in front of the stage. I chose to sit for most of that set, getting up mainly to take video of three friends who were wearing lighted costumes and were engaged in performance art. There was a third band, which performed well, but their vibe was a bit on the angry side. Turns out, they had a shortened set, due to some misunderstanding with the festival organizers. The final band, Arrested Development, a hip-hop group, also performed well, though I heard their offerings only as I walked back towards my vehicle.
So, that was Vorti-Fest, and my Saturday. This is also my 3000th post, on this platform. Goodness and ill abound in this life, and I do not hesitate to bring you both, in the right measure. My feelings right now are well-covered, if obliquely so, by Paul Simon’s “America”.
August 20, 2022-The joyful minstrel, at Rafter Eleven, made songs up as she went along, including one about “There’s sticky glue, on my mailbox, where your name used to be”. She prefaced it all with Ray Stevens’ “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival”. Having been to Pascagoula, I can see every bit of such things as are described in the song-not happening. The city is a bustling shipbuilding center, or was, when I visited-but why quibble? Ray’s songs were a staple of my teen years, as counterpoints to all the heaviness in the music of the late 60s.
It was a lovely musical set, with romantic ballads and country-tinged novelty tunes, well juxtaposed. From there, I drove through a short, but intense, thunderstorm, and sat talking with some friends at Synergy-mostly listening, though, as they inveighed against designer drugs and pondered what benefit, if any, there was to psychotropic substances. Personally, I will pass on all of those things. My mind is active enough, without external help.
These activities were preceded by the annual American Legion Post 6 picnic, at Goldwater Lake. Fortunately, the day was sunny and mild, until well after the picnic was finished. So, during the time under the ramada, a few lingering conflicts between some embers were resolved, awards were given out to long-standing servants in the Post and I won a nice prize. The food was well-prepared and the mood, overall, was very pleasant. The lake itself is slowly rising, though still a long way from being in what I would consider a healthy state.
It’s been a fine day, and night, as I drove back under partly cloudy skies, with the rain being done for the day.
April 12, 2022- Gilbert Gottfried died today, at age 67. His was a classic New York voice, brash and direct, thinly masking a huge heart that cared for many of the same people he was “trashing”. My encounters with his work were relatively few: There was Iago the Parrot, in the animated “Aladdin” movies of the 1990s; an occasional Groucho Marx or Jerry Seinfeld imitation, on a talk show seen in a doctor’s office waiting room and there were his appearances on various celebrity roasts-each mirroring the work of his role model and mentor: Don Rickles (who he also would tear apart, on certain routines). The word is, Gilbert could take it as well as dish it out, in the Noo Yawk style. There is no one left who is quite like him, on the stage of comedy. He traded in political “incorrectness”, to remind us all that no one is perfect.
I have personally evolved into maintaining a modicum of “political correctness”, primarily out of common courtesy. Certain words, especially racial or gender epithets, have never been in my repertoire; others, when I felt forced by peers, in young adulthood, came chokingly out of my mouth-in private conversation. I felt sick afterwards, and those pejoratives were soon gone from my very consciousness. Then again, my sense of humour is dry, situational. I would not be one who could pack the house-or clear it, when deemed necessary. Gilbert Gottfried could do both.
For most of us, the ebb and flow of courtesy towards others is a balancing act-between offering the respect that human beings inherently deserve and the admonitions that are frequently needed. It helps to be generally nonjudgmental, as well as to have the moral compass that offers judgement when it serves a purpose.
Gilbert Gottfried lived by making that distinction.
March 17, 2022, Newnan, GA- The conflict in Ukraine brings up images of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, at least for me. Thus today’s visit to the Picasso Immersion, at the Pullman Warehouse Exhibition Hall, in Atlanta’s Five Points area, was particularly poignant. Guernica, for the unitiated, is the large painting in the center of this montage of Picasso’s cubist works.
Picasso’s works, from 1890-1960,were largely his reaction to the horrific World Wars, Spanish Civil War and what he saw as the rise of materialism. Pablo Picasso had his own mind about the political reality of the day and would depict those he regarded as corrupt and decadent, in a monstrous manner-representing Francisco Franco, for example, as a pile of inedible food, in Guernica, itself named for a village in northern Spain that had been bombed by Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso was a varied artist, though, and was able to represent people beloved to him, in a more conventional manner. He wrote poetry as well, such as the autobiographical “A Lonely Road Is That I Walked”:
“I walk a lonely road, the one and only one I’ve ever known. I don’t know where it goes, but I keep walking on and on. I walked the lonely and un trodden road for I was walking on the bridge of the broken dreams. I don’t know what the world is fighting for or why I am being instigated. It’s for this that I walk this lonely road for I wish to be ALONE! So I am breaking up, breaking up. It is the lack of self control that I feared as there is something Inside me that pulls the need to surface, consuming, confusing. Being called Weird, I walk this lonely road for on the verge of broken dreams. And so I walk this lonely road and so just keep walking still” – pablo picasso
Like e.e. cummings after him, Picasso created in a self-deprecating fashion. He was somewhat devoted to his children, who were the only people allowed in his studio, while he worked. From the 1920s until the end of World War II, he hobnobbed with the avant-garde, in the south of France, only occasionally returning to Spain, for short periods of time. He reacted to what he saw as crass materialism, by becoming a Communist after World War II and continuing to depict members of the economic and social elite, in unflattering ways.
Picasso has always been a source of fascination to me, although admittedly an acquired taste, and requiring of considerable pondering and rumination, as to the meaning of his surrealist work. This immersion event has whetted my appetite for exploration of other great artists of our time and of earlier eras.
There was no corned beef and cabbage for us, today. The crew gathered for St. Patrick’s Day dinner, at a Taco Max in Dunwoody, north of Atlanta, and enjoyed fairly copious amounts of guacamole-along with rather good Mexican dishes. The children have their own take on everything, much like Senor Picasso. I hope to see them reach for the stars and not suffer undue hardship. It was a rare, but most enjoyable visit with our Dunwoody family.
May art, and creativity, ever be honoured and encouraged.
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A Sagittarian Seeker 