5.21.2020 – fly above the wind

fly above the wind
fear, hope, burn and freeze like ice.
yet cannot arise

Years ago when I was working at WZZM13 TV in Grand Rapids, the decision was made that the WEB GUY should be in the newsroom where all the action was.

I was where the action was alright.

I was doing web development and design as well and content management sitting under 4 or 5 TV sets and a blaring police scanner radio.

I needed help concentrating.

Something to drown out the buzz.

I discovered online music.

Understand this was BEFORE people began uploading music to YOUTUBE.

But this was when individuals began posting their own music on their own websites.

I discovered some pretty fantastic music on the websites of college choral groups.

To this day I will search out music of this sort and recently came across the YouTube listing for the University College of Dublin Chorale but I digress.

In my searching I came across an artist by the name of Nora York.

A name just recently I learned was a take off on New York.

Her personal website had links to her music and she described the background of her songs.

A couple of songs really hit me and scored my soul.

One titled, “What I want” had the lyrics,

I want what I can’t have, need what I can’t want
Have what I don’t have, what I want
What I can’t have, need what I can’t want
Have what I don’t have, what I want
What I can’t have, need what I can’t want
Have what I don’t have, what I want
What I can’t have, need what I can’t want
Have what I don’t have, what I want
What I can’t have, need what I can’t want
Have but I don’t have

For some reason I could put this song on repeat and listen all day.

It got me through my day in the newsroom and took me to another place.

If I got tired of it, I would switch over to the song, “Another Day”.

The songs were always there online whenever I needed them.

I lost touch with the songs when I moved to Atlanta.

I would think of them from time to time and even play them.

By this time I had downloaded them so I didn’t need to back to the website.

Then I lost the files.

Just recently I thought again about those two songs.

I went searching.

I was expecting what I found.

I was saddened to find out that Nora York died of Pancreatic Cancer in 2016.

I was a little shocked to find out that her passing was recognized by an obit in the New York Times.

“Nora York, Singer Who Fused Forms, Dies at 60“

The author of the obit wrote, “Ms. York sang with a supple, polished voice that was by turns mournful, yearning and powerful. She covered or adapted the work of musicians like the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Charles Mingus, Joe Simon, Stravinsky, George Gershwin and Fats Waller.”

Turns out Ms York had carved out quite a place in the New York music scene.

I wasn’t the only one but for some reason I thought I was.

I felt good that she had achieved a level of fame.

She had released four albums, none of which picked by a major label.

“Because,” Ms. York said, “no can figure out how to place my music.”

I figured it out.

Or at least I liked it.

I want what I can’t have, need what I can’t want.

Have what I don’t have, what I want.

It was, the music, what I wanted.

It was the music I did not have.

In another version of her song, “What I want” she prefaced it with a few lines from a sonnet by Thomas Wyatt, I Find No Peace written around 1540.

I find no peace, and all my war is done.
I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I season.
That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not—yet can I scape no wise—
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health.
I love another, and thus I hate myself.
I feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;
Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,
And my delight is causer of this strife.

Even from beyond the grave, Nora York reached out with something new to me that was 500 years old.

I it was what I wanted.

It was what I didn’t have.

Found peace.

My wars, for a time, were over.

How these things work out is beyond me.

Here is the version of What I Want that I listened to.

5.20.2020 – spreading rapidly

spreading rapidly
global misinformation
an infodemic

They’ve built this whole ecosystem that is all about engagement, allows viral spread, and hasn’t ever put any currency on accuracy says Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington professor quoted in Tech giants struggle to stem ‘infodemic’ of false coronavirus claims.

Odd that both infodemic and coronavirus are thrown out by spell check.

The Collins Online Dictionary defines infodemic as, “An excessive amount of information concerning a problem such that the solution is made more difficult.”

I would say that it is pretty accurate.

I would say that it is downright scary.

“We planned for years for this pandemic, but we never realised that we would be fighting a war on two fronts,” said Bergstrom. “One against the pandemic, and one against all the disinformation and hate and fear that is being amped up and enflamed by political opportunists.”

5.19.2020 – government prone to

government prone to
sustained bouts of stupidity
is news to nobody

Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.

So says that great American, Tom Sawyer in the book, Huckleberry Finn.

Gets to the final sum pretty quick.

Right is right.

Wrong is wrong.

When people are out of money, food, work and hope, well that is wrong.

Does any one disagree?

Then we should do right.

We should do the right thing.

We should do the opposite of wrong.

We got to get money, food, work and hope to those people.

So we look to Congress.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist (#52) when he was explaining the Constitution to America, “It is it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people.”

Big words.

Good words.

Essential words.

It is essential to Liberty …

It is particularly essential …

That the branch [House of Representatives] should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with the people.

Sympathy.

There is a word not often used in the same sentence as the word, Congress.

And why?

Mr. Twain also wrote, “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

I can picture Mr. Hamilton today saying, ‘Something went wrong here.”

5.18.202 – oh anxiety

oh anxiety,
hard to accept the unknown
oh the frustration

Everything looks worse in black and white.

Give us those nice, bright colors.

Give us the greens of summers.

Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day.

It’s a sense of scale really.

My friend Doug’s father was a Geology Professor.

Doug told how on family trips his Dad would notice a nice example of agglomerates or amphibolites or what have you and would stop to take a photo.

“Go stand next to that boulder for scale,” he would tell Doug.

He would use these photos as slides in his lectures.

Forever after Doug would run into people who taken his Dad’s classes and they would point at him and say, “You’re the scale kid!”

On a scale of 1 to 10 is my anxiety a 9?

On a scale of 1 to 100 is my anxiety still a 9 or is it 90?

If I see things a certain way that’s my business.

They way you see it is your business.

You don’t have to agree with me at all.

But on the matter of scale.

If it we agree it works, though we don’t agree on what we see, isn’t the scale the same?

Doug didn’t change.

His size relative to rock was constant.

The relative size of Doug the rock stayed the same.

Where do we lose agreement?

Frustrating isn’t it.

Frustration.

Frustration born out of agreement.

Can that get more frustrating?

I should mention the opening lines are taken from Paul Simon’s song, Kodachrome.

5.17.2020 – my view through my lens

my view through my lens
my assumption what I see
same through your lens, but …

I remember a story in a book on photography.

The author, who I cannot recall, described a scene at a park where he was walking with a friend.

The were some distance behind another feller who had a camera.

This feller would stop and stare and now and then, move around in one spot, and take a photo.

Then the feller would move on.

Our author and his friend would arrive at the same spot and they would stop.

The author’s friend would look.

And look and look.

And say, “What did that feller see here? I don’t see anything. What was he taking a picture of?”

In the 1981 film, Ansel Adams, photographer, Mr. Adams describes what went into the photograph Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.

I feel the most important of the story is Mr. Adams saying, “I observed a fantastic scene.”

From the get-go he recognized that what he was looking at was special and that a special photograph just might capture the scene.

Mr. Adams has written about this moment and the upheaval as he pulled over and starting setting up his camera.

You have to love the part where he cannot find his light meter but remembered that moonlight was 250 candles per square foot.

He writes that he got all set and snapped the photo and “I knew it was special when I released the shutter.”

Would I have recognized the scene?

I would not have remembered the luminosity of the moon in foot candles.

Would I have had the same view in my lens?

Doubt it.

As I walk though my day today I will see many things.

But I will make the assumption that what I see and the way I see it is the way every one sees it.

Coronavirus.

Stay at home.

Wear a mask.

President Trump.

Governors.

Sentators.

They way I see these things is the way everyone sees them.

Right?

Obviously not.

The views are different and all over the place.

A short walk down the information super highway with a crowd from social media should convince me of that.

Though, I still have to stop at the same spots and I have to ask.

What did those people who come away with different views see here?

What do you see here?