If I don’t measure the amount of media in my daily diet, I will suffer from Press Plaque Buildup.
The main symptom of this disease is cynicism. Sometimes I don’t even know I have fallen into this state. I am so involved in staying involved and current, I don’t see my hope and positivity slip and slide right out of my brain ball into the flotsam on the jetsam (the lost and local river of my mind).
I am pulled back from the precipice by art or music or nature or my favorite online newsletter BRAINPICKINGS. Replace the word NEWS with ART…which it is for me an ARTLETTER for the mind.
Recently, my level of press plaque buildup has hit a new high. What with Afghanastan , vaccinate vs. unvaccinate, mask or unmask, airline passengers assaulting attendants, to Boost or not to Boost, Red States vs. Blue states, why was Ted Lasso Christmas Show shown in August, my brain was spinning from positive to negative from hopeful to hopeless.
TA-DA!!!! Like the midweek pick up it purports to be there is this wonderful article on and about Leonard Bernstein and so much of what I thought and what he did and how he navigated his creative and difficult world brought back into the light and the hope.
If any of what I’ve written resonates with you, my dear friends and family, I wish you a speedy recovery from the crazy world we live in, which by the way has always been crazy…take a look at any era… lions chasing Jews/Christians in an arena (personally I prefer to watch the Jets chase the Marlins), Whites chasing anyone of any color, Christians chasing Muslims in the Holy Land, Southerners chasing Northerners followed by Northerners chasing Southerners….endless.
To help that recovery, please read and I promise you will be converted from a Cynic, which we all now is nothing but a disappointed idealist, to your true, beautiful hopeful self.
Stirring?? Isn’t it?? I have been reading and rereading it since I received it and I still don’t know what I think?
Not true! I do know. Here are some of my thoughts.
Personally, I find it as humorous as the author meant it to be. However, almost as soon as I start laughing, I start crying about the utter tragedy of the whole idea. I’d love to say this is a new idea brought on by the political polarizations of the past president and his administration of four years culminating in the 2020 Presidential election, but that would not be the truth. Though I am no historian, I do know these differences were there from the very beginning. As the representatives of the original 13 states gathered in Philadelphia from 1774-1781 every difference written about in this Divorce, American Style article, was as pronounced then as it is now. This time frame included the 1776 meeting, where the delegates read George III of Great Britain the riot act in the form of the Declaration of Independence which doubled as our Declaration of War against England.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall (definitely a fly more better than a mosquito, don’cha think?) as they tried to hammer out their differences. And here is my own personal conclusion. They never did. You could say it was a pile up of differences; food, hobbies, language, culture, education and don’t forget the heat. Yeah, maybe, a little of this, a little of that. I say nay! It was always all about slavery aka race. The success of the economic and political life of the South was based on the continued use and import of slaves kidnapped from Africa. And please spread the blame, from fellow Africans seeking to make a buck and settle their own political squabbles, to profits for the seafaring industry of the North. Ultimately, the largest consumers in the slave trade was the South which, at that time included Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. Maryland was borderline abusers/users. The Northern States were not absolved from abusing/using slaves. Simply put my friends, their numbers didn’t compare with the South.
I’m going on and on about slavery like it was the only issue because in my mind it is the only issue. Oh, sure, you have taxes, roads and many other state issues but none as huge, ugly and ever present as the story of slavery in this country.
Recently I read an article in the New Yorker about the Brits having their awareness jostled as they come to the realization of how many of the fabulous country houses in their National Trust Register were built on the backs of slaves from British plantations in the West Indies and Jamaica. Don’t even think about returning to Downton Abbey or Upstairs to the Downstairs. Or, is it the other way around?
Back to the article. I agree with much of what Mr. Vandevelder asked for in the divorce… I don’t feel that strongly about Las Vegas or Disneyland… aren’t they the same thing??
There have been so many attempts to leave each other over the years. One that cost the lives of 618,222 Americans. A number that up until the Vietnam War surpassed all other wars combined. No matter what they say about war, death is not a contest. But for your edification: North: 360,222. South: 258,000. North or South, War or Peace, Death SUCKS!!!
Here’s my conclusion and I am beyond ready to listen to all arguments, discussions, pro… con… sitting on a fence… or straddling. If you can’t honor the Constitution of the United States and all its laws and amendments, if you can’t allow someone to have a different opinion from your opinion, if the only way you can respect or accept a person of any color, religion or nationality is to enslave, cage or kill them, then this dream is done.
However, you should kow that I am always up for a last chance miracle.
The rise of the power of the internet, social and news media, promotes confusion, fear and anger to a pitch were we seem to have lost our abilities to listen or even hear each other. If we can’t understand or communicate, we might as well throw our humanity to the lions. And let me tell you something about lions. They are not dumb. Throw a person without his or her or their humanity to the lions they will take one sniff and ⚡️SHAZAM⚡️ … VEGETARIANS!!]
So??? What’s it to be??? Hope with a soupcon of peace and reconciliation and the return of when our humanity was delicious or…
THE END
Love, Sally-Jane ❤️
P.S. Oh, by the way this article was written in 2012. I am of the belief that the only constant in life is change… or is it?
Each morning that I open my eyes I am grateful. I mean really grateful. I mean not taking it for granted grateful. I mean at my age that eye opening event is not a given. Yeah, yeah, I know… at any age. But let’s get real. At almost 88, for me that ranks as almost historic. I have a brother totally compos mentis and active who recently celebrated 101 years who would call me a child. If only. No, that is not true. I can’t believe I am going to write this. But there really is no other age or time I want to be in other than the one I am in now. With what is going on how is that even possible?
Well, let me tell you what supersedes all… LIFE… however challening and difficult… LIFE!
So back to my daily awakening. I open my eyes and I am grateful. I roll out of bed… yes, that’s what I said, I roll out of bed to the bathroom. I am so much more aware of the waddle I purposely use and the care I take all in the prevention of the real villain of getting up there in age… THE FALL. Too many of my friends and relations have gone the way of all flesh because of a fall. So yes, I do not mind walking and moving like an aging elephant if it prevents my falling (I admit, at my age I am happily the elephant in the room, always.)
Where was I? Oh, yes! I return to roll back onto and into bed and am the happier for that initial journey. And that is when I take my first snooze… maybe 5 minutes. And then it begins.
I open and close my eyes many times. When I close my eyes, I try to go for another little snooze.
Foot or Head note: This process usually begins around 6:00A.M.
True, it’s early, but I finish reading around 10:00P.M. the night before only because that is when the eyes seem to close all by themselves.
So… 6 A.M. begins the eyes-opening-awake-eyes-closing-snooze time. I think this is an old habit. From my school days through and to my work days, I always struggled for that extra sleep time. Then, I needed it. I had show business hours. I went through the motions looking like I was awake (not!) until around 11 A.M. However, now as I have no set schedule except that which I create with the help of friends, family, and my various enterprises, I am beginning to realize after about half an hour, why I am putting off getting up and out of bed.
Waking my body up after a night of slumber is no easy task.
Who knew? Not me.
I heard from others how getting older takes its toll on the body. Not me. I plied my body with exercise and movement. But even with practice, the body reaches a point of no return. Again, I thought, not me.
I feel like Debbie Reynolds in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (great movie by the way). Her character never cried uncle in defeat.
Forced by decisions she made, finally she cried UNCLE! I find myself forced by simple body arithmetic, crying UNCLE!
Sue me! My body has a different agenda than my head.
It is like the photo of myself I look at and the mirror I look into.They are both parts of the same person. And yet, they each tell a different story.
It is not good for my morale to remember hopping out of bed to get ready for the day. The word hopping is not in my vocabulary unless it applies to Peter Rabbit.
It is not good for my morale to remember shouting to a friend, “I just got out of bed. I’ll be ready in 10 minutes.” Ten minutes would just be the getting out of bed part.
It is not good for my morale to go without breakfast which I regularly did. I need the food to process pills.
Ask me if I am depressed? I am not. Wistful, sometimes, but not depressed.
I repeat what I wrote before: There is no other age or time I want to be in other than the one I am in now. What? Am I crazy? Well, of course…
Yeah, yeah, I am a late bloomer. So was Grandma Moses.
And I haven’t even mentioned the STATE of STATE affairs. The rending of our Founding Fathers dreams of a nation under God, with liberty and justice for all. It’s almost as though I want to say to each of the politicians that electronically spout the lies of racism, the election, the pandemic, the vaccinations, the climate… ”Hey, guys, I know how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning. Don’t!” Imagine having a break from all their nasty insanity… now that’s something I might try to hop out of bed for.
By all manner of ways and means, I should be depressed but a phrase keeps rolling around in my brainball: The Best of All Possible Worlds.
Voltaire, a writer extraordinaire of the 17th Century, wrote a novella Candide. It is a satirical take on those of us who choose to remain optimists as the tsunamis of life appear on the horizon ready to sweep us out into the roiling sea. Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein did the lyrics and the music of this very successful musical adaptation.
Oh, by the way we have a present day Candide… Ted Lasso. Maybe that’s why the show is so successful and why everyone loves him so much. He is the cockeyed optimist. He lives in the best of all possible worlds. He believes. Maybe we love him because we are on cynical overload and want to believe, too.
Summing it up my friends, it is definitely harder to get out of bed in the morning. All my body parts have to be aligned for it to happen with a minimum of discomfort.
I fear the news, personal and otherwise, is not going to get much better for at least the near future. However, As the Pilgrims and other early seafarers after months and sometimes years at sea, in survivor relief, shouted, “Signs of Land”!!.
And I believe there are happenings that warrant encouragement:
* Brittany Spears’s father is out! * Prince Harry and Prince William reconcile. * In an extraordinary bipartisan agreement Cuomo, DeSantis, Abbot, Cruz ,Hawley, and Greene, before establishing their new law firm, have formed their own anger management Foundation. * Trump has joined an Ashram in the Catskills. * Melania has left with her mother for Monte Carlo.
But for the most encouraging sign of all follow these instructions:
Take the fingers of your right hand, place them on the inner wrist of your left hand, if you feel the beat all good things will follow.
More Self: I can always depend on you to ask the right question at the right time.
Even More Self: Who are you talking to?
Back to the first Self: Don’t ask. Just go with the flow.
There are so many reasons I tuned into the story of Buddy Guy:
I love the Blues. I have a vision of myself from forever as a singer of the Blues. Sitting atop a piano, looking strangely like a bad imitation of Julie London, plaintively crying a river of blues. My audience suitably sobbing (free tissue packs included in the price of admission.) Scratch a comedienne and you’ll find a tragedienne.
I knew the name Buddy Guy. I didn’t really know who he is.
American Masters always find really interesting people to profile.
Their documentaries are gloriously, artistically interesting and informative.
Buddy Guy is a blues guitar player in the style of his heroes and mentors, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters. Familiar names but little known to me. Buddy was born 83 years ago in a small town in Louisiana. From the beginning he never thought of himself as special. And as I listened to him describe his life in this small town, where his family were share croppers and as a child, he picked cotton. Before I even heard him play, I felt I was being osmotically drawn to him right through all the electronic apparatus between him and me. As I watched and listened to him learn to play, at first with only two strings before he had enough money to buy a real guitar, I thought… ”What is it about this man that touches me so deeply? First, his humility… what can I say, is humbling. At a time when everyone is “look at me-ing” all over the place, he put his focus where it belonged… on discovering, exploring, and practicing his gift.
He needed to breathe. He needed to play. One was inextricably linked to the other. I related. Even when I didn’t want to, that is how I lived.
BREATHE IN… 1,2,3
WORK… and a-1 and a-2 and a-3
In the first moments of this profile, I watched as he listened to the greats of his time, first in Baton Rouge then after moving on to Chicago. All he ever wanted to do was try to play like they did. He never thought he’d ever become a professional musician. He just wanted to play his guitar. Chicago was a mecca for the Blues. He could and did watch. He could and did listen. For him it was simple. He needed to breathe. He needed to play. This was all very familiar to me. I was hooked.
Throughout the documentary, various personalities, guitar players (of all ages), managers, agents, tell Buddy’s story. And then we have the Brits. I find it interesting that most Americans of the 50’s and 60’s and even into the 70’s (my ignorance astounds me, but then it always has) didn’t know about Buddy or Howlin’ Wolf or Muddy Waters, or John Lee Hooker, but Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones knew. Eric Clapton knew. Stevie Ray Vaughn knew, and when Buddy went to London as a tourist…. the Brits pounced on him and made him play with them and it was the breakthrough he needed because it was when the Stones toured the States that they demanded and got these great unknown (Ha! Ha!) guitar players included in their tours.
An amazing piece of Black History. Of course there are so many unknown amazing pieces of Black History to shake up the shame I share with whoever is willing to share it with me.
Another piece of my ignorance follows the various interviews of one, John Mayer. I had only heard of him as the escort of various People Magazine movie and television stars. (Please don’t give me grief. People magazine is my go to the beauty salon, doctor offices, necessary reading material. I call ahead to be assured the establishments carry the latest issues.) So who knew from John Mayer? Turns out these movie stars knew a good thing after all. He was truly erudite, intelligent and bonkers over Buddy. And I understand he can play guitar as well as other things, too.
Buddy Guy’s life story stirred my thinking about the creative process.
As I view some of the artists today, I am saddened. It’s not as if I do not see the talent, the gift. In my thinking however, the gift really is only one small part of an artist’s process. Without discipline, without working the gift, it can only go so far. In fact, I would say, without the kind of practicing that Buddy Guy did, his glorious gift would never have developed the way it did. Practice doesn’t guarantee success, but without it the shelf life of the artist’s gift is a short one.
Sally-Jane's Blah, Blah, Blog 