OT ~ Welcome to Saturday Morning!

Sit-a-while

on swinging porch

where tin-dippers and

sweet water

in cool touches

meet lips

from hand dug wells.

Good morning good people!

Hell of a week, good to be here; morning's work inspired by writers of c99 in recent weeks, thank you.

Morning poetry/prose with music:

Our lives are so exorbitantly entwined inexorably we miss the magic.

Both personally and in communities, tribes and nations, the look is singular, first, inward, instead of outward; easily accepting the breeding after birth.

Add to this our collective falling prey to the over-rationalistic Western tendency in trying to fit everything into one great pattern dulling the soup and not stopping a painting, a canvas, until the colors run muddy, and, we ask, "why, oh why did i do that, pass go without arriving at the truth?"

So vivid, so simple, so alive, surrounding us in great oceans; yet, alone, we pitch on, camping out, camping in, until the end.

Taking heart, we have go; possessing the senses of same exorbitant evolution embedded like today's music; sharing the story inside.

“A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.”
~ Lewis Mumford

The stage is yours!

Its a penguin kind of day/time, enjoy.

THE ECSTASY OF DANCING FLEAS

SOLARIS

Southern Jukebox Music

Numbers1-4

if you've the time, stack the roundtable, placing needle down.

Live on British TV 1989

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

smiley7's picture

to the heat this week, been unusually hot and dry. Must remember, the scheduler keeps Central time as OT is 30 minutes late today. Coffee's ready. Smile

up
0 users have voted.
Arrow's picture

And good morning to all.

Nothing new here in Cuenca this morning. Just is cloudy is all.

Hope everyone has a nice day. I'll try...

up
0 users have voted.

I want a Pony!

smiley7's picture

@Arrow

Thinking of traveling, again... wishing, more likely, but my traveling buddy calls to remind me, "we have to, before we go." He and I had such great plans interrupted by health and circumstance three years ago; your home is on 'the list.'

In the meantime, hope you don't mind we live the scene, vicariously through you.

Sigh no more

Sigh no more,
Put it all in a drawer,
Don’t let life be a bore,
Go out and explore,
Cast your line from ashore,
Do the things you adore,
Remember it like it was pre-war,
Like you ran out the backdoor,
Didn’t stop screaming till the encore,
Waited and watched the downpour,
While kids called you hardcore,
And you listened to folklore,
Praised the big uproar,
Traveled to ecuador,
Chose to ignore
Listened to the troubadour,
Forgot to abhor,
Gazed at the eyesore,
Praised the antiwar,
Dreamed evermore.

~ Roxanne Pepin

up
0 users have voted.
Arrow's picture

@smiley7 Gotta get out there and live large (ifsimple). people are counting on my reports after all.

I won't let you down Smiley7... I promise.

Remember: Pictures, descriptions, and accounts of this adventure are the property of everyone. And...may be distributed without the consent of the Commissioner of Baseball.

up
0 users have voted.

I want a Pony!

smiley7's picture

@Arrow @Arrow

ain't it grand? This life, the simplicity juxtaposed...

A few mornings ago, went down the 22 steps to main street, crossed and sat on the
hill to watch the sunrise and the college town come to life and was treated to the largest, closest moon in memory, i could almost grasp it, less than a courtyard away it appeared over the rooftops, magic. Smile

up
0 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

@Arrow
enjoyable and fulfilling day.

up
0 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

and communications. It appears that I have missed further madness, major science and who knows what else. I did however enjoy scattered showers of the seed vehicles of the sugar pine, quasi-explosively ejected from the cones thereof. Now it is back to the garden and electronic communication interspersed with the ritual cleaning and stowage of ye olde camping gear.

up
0 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

smiley7's picture

@enhydra lutris

someday, we have to talk about a purple-splotched trout, growing on average to five inches that inhabits the Sierra's around 5,000 feet and lives here as well on Grandfather Mountain, similar altitude 5-6,000. How did the beauty travel more than 3,000 miles?

up
0 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

@smiley7 @smiley7

edit: fix typo

up
0 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

smiley7's picture

@enhydra lutris

Several years ago, a magazine article about flyfishing in the Sierra's prominately displayed photos of the beauty. We, the locals, call it spotted trout: only found up high where no other fish species exists. Later, other Western fishermen, ski buddies, actually, confirmed the beauty's inhabiting the Sierra's, too.

up
0 users have voted.

So glad you witnessed a beautiful sunrise this morning. I too was outside to feel the warmth of the sun this morning as well as the much appreciated early morning coolness of the air.

"A feeling of warmth" is how one of the musicians from PCO describes the atmosphere and feeling of community while performing this concert.

Your comments bring to mind connection, community, and our unknowable, intricate, participation in everything from a microscopic level to a global one. Your musical selection hints at that as well. I have to remember to remind myself of this, I always forget.

I like your poem, "put it all in a drawer" (for a bit anyway).

up
0 users have voted.
smiley7's picture

@randtntx

find peace and solitude in nature as i believe most folks do; even a windowsill plant gives me encouragement at times.

The sense of community and asking why, particularly in politics, was raised and discussed in creative ways on c99 of late and the why stirs in my head, trying to get a handle on the needs for hopeful correction as we move forward, beyond the obvious of moving the greedy, religious con-men out of the way; the future is coming.

Big reach for me, easier said in poetry when the words come, that is.

Another poem by Roxanne Pepin
The advantage of life

Bust a rhyme
Not a crime
Take your time
Everything’s fine
Keep up the climb
Stop the wine
Reach for the vine
Forget exterior design
That’s the bottom line

up
0 users have voted.

You're sounding mighty chipper today, Smiley. Glad things are looking good your way.

We do have a great bunch of writers.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

smiley7's picture

@dkmich @dkmich

feeling more chipper than usual; rescheduled postponed health needs, happy to have most of that ahead, the month of August, going to two special clinics in Chapel Hill, thinking positively that they may help slow the pulmonary hypertension and do procedures for the other rare lung disease.

And I hope I'm not too syrupy in my words as cloy is a recurring online criticism of me on blogs for years.

Just that i'm feeling more free... perhaps it does have something to do with the 'white light' and being on a machine for 7-plus hours in open-heart surgery.

Hard to explain...

up
0 users have voted.
riverlover's picture

@smiley7 @smiley7 I discovered that after a time (undetermined) in hospital, especially in another state, I become psychotic. If there need be another time I will warn the nurses. And I am always nice to them. Just lost in myself.

edit for clumsy fingers.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

smiley7's picture

@riverlover
well said.
Been missing you on c99 of late.

Recall joking a couple months back that between us in health needs, the Book of Job reads like a Grimm's fairy tale; lucky, we are to have care, as difficult as that and the system can be.

Thank you for being here!

up
0 users have voted.

@smiley7 I don't give credence to such criticism. One can never know what effort of will is required for someone to intentionally seek and express what is beautiful in this life.

Here is a group that has been criticized for being too exuberant.
https://youtu.be/bjTh2huJh1k

up
0 users have voted.
smiley7's picture

@randtntx

recalling Richard II, "Music do i hear, Play on!" and after a couple hours of contemplation spurred by mid-day comments i think it's a renewed or new vulnerability circumstances have delivered. Vulnerability, an actor's secret, the gold standard of being, sought after in disciplined sweat...there for the taking, the brilliance of 'being alive'

It's back, packed as always in danger and tears wanting to share, be.

Guarded, too, in its treasure waiting to take flight and this is what i've been searching to say, feels dynamically uneven, emotional and ebullient.

Thank you.

up
0 users have voted.

@smiley7 I truly appreciate your comment smiley7 and will try to respond in a coherent way though I know I will fall short. I don't usually consider an actor's point-of-view (simply because I don't know it), but you express it so well that it shows that there are various ways to get to the same place. (Apologies for being trite.)

Here on C99 I am occasionally struck by a flash of insight by a comment, or the direction of an Open Thread, that there is a shared recognition of something ineffable but crucial. Often it's the result of a conversation about art, music, nature, movies, literature, gardening, or even something as seemingly prosaic as cooking. When you mention "...the gold standard of being...", I think it indicates an ineffable but crucial thing.

My reaction to those occasional flashes of recognition to your writing and other writing here is a combination of relief, vindication, joy, and astonishment in various measures. As cynical as we all have a right to be, the battle to not loose that feeling of "the brilliance of being alive" is a worthy one. Thank you for reminding us and verbalizing it so well. That is what art can do, if given a chance.

up
0 users have voted.
janis b's picture

Thank you for the art you offer, in all it's forms. The Mumford quote and Penguin Cafe album cover reminded me of my favourite NZ painter, Bill Hammond.

up
0 users have voted.
smiley7's picture

@janis b

Hammond is special; been browsing his work, thanks for sharing.

Doors open doors and this piece appeared today:

Smile

up
0 users have voted.
janis b's picture

@smiley7

[video:https://youtu.be/_K6oUJ1GOHs]

Thank you.

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

Steven D wrote an essay about the NRA video that accuses the left of being violent. They got a lot flak for that video, so instead of tamping down the rhetoric, they doubled it.

The article that goes with the video
The NRA Is Playing a Deadly Game in Labeling the Left as Violent

From the comments on this article:

The NRA is running dangerously close, at this point, of mendaciously yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater.

This Gun Selling Organization, like the many Religion Selling Organizations in Our Country, relies on, and continuously feeds their constituents FEAR.

FEAR is the motivator, as Christopher Hitchens explained many times, behind Religion, and Gun Worship is just another of its Denominations.

Compare this to the Dalai Lama's revelation that "Our Purpose in Life is to be Happy."

Happy doesn't Sell Guns or Fill the Collection Plates.

No Sane, Informed Person could possibly buy into either the NRA or Organized Religion.

As Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg once posited "..for Good People to do Evil Things, that takes Religion."

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

smiley7's picture

@snoopydawg

Best not tell the NRA we can skull squirrels at 100 yards; they most likely will misinterpret the old saying as they miss most every other important thing about human dignity, except selling guns and making money, of course.

Have a great evening.

up
0 users have voted.