1.14.2023 – people want to think

people want to think
everything’s back to normal but
going take longer

There is always something lately seems to be the new way to look at things.

Orange is the new black was the thing to say for a while.

Not following fashion too much, I have a 5 pairs of pants, khaki khaki’s, black khaki’s and 3 pairs of blue jeans, I am not much sure about what the old black was.

Black, maybe?

And trying to nail down the origin of the phrase, the closest I could find on the Google (after .6 seconds of searching) was that it showed up in the late-’70s, when the New York Times stated: “Colors are the new neutrals.”

Back in the day, when I lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan and the hoi-polloi said they lived in EAST Grand Rapids, folks who couldn’t get property in EGR started saying Rockford was the new EGR.

(For fun just say hoi-polloi of Grand Rapids, Michigan out loud.)

I went around saying, that Sparta, it’s the new Rockford, just to watch Rockfordians get upset.

Its a Grand Rapids thing so don’t worry if you don’t get it.

In an article about New York Theater, ‘It’s a hard time’: why are so many Broadway shows closing early?, Mr. David Smith writes:

“People just got used to staying home and getting people back out and remembering how amazing live theatre is is taking time. Also people are still suffering and dealing with the trauma of the last few years. People want to think everything’s back to normal but it’s going to take longer for all people to feel normal after two and a half years of tragedy.”

I have to agree.

People want to think everything’s back to normal!

And I agree that it’s going to take longer for all people to feel normal after two and a half years of tragedy.

Normal.

It’s the new normal.

Tempora mutantur.

Times change and we change with the times.

And as Mr. Churchill said, or was reported as saying, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”

If Mr. Churchill was correct, and in saying that it is important to keep in mind that FDR said ‘Winston has 100 ideas everyday but only one is good. That’s okay as he will have another 100 ideas tomorrow, but as I was saying, if Mr. Churchill was correct, with all the change we have experienced in the last 2 and half years, we must be coming close to perfection.

There is that definition of perfection to worry about though.

7.24.2022 – inflation rising

inflation rising
everything, pizza, rent, nightlife
is taking a hit

From the line “Inflation has been rising at the fastest rate in nearly four decades, affecting the prices of almost everything, from pizza to rent. Amid the surge, nightlife is taking a hit.” as it appears in the story, Nightlife Inflation: The Cost of Going Out Is Going Up, by Anna P. Kambhampaty, in the Feb. 28, 2022 NYT.

7.23.2022 – people sat at home

people sat at home
doing nothing and they thought
do something instead

My Saturday morning reading started with an article in the Guardian about a trip to the Suffolk region of Great Britain.

The writer, Sarah Perry, author of the Serpent’s Tail books, was tasked with chronicling a “typical UK summer’s day” and she wrote about a visit to a World War 2 museum and a tea break at a local pub in Suffolk.

Ms. Perry names the pub, the Buck Inn at Flixton, but maddeningly, did not name the museum.

I guess travel columns are not her forte.

I will have to do some searching but I want to find this place about which Ms. Perry wrote, “We find ourselves in a place in which something strange or interesting occurs every few feet.”

At this unnamed museum, Ms. Perry encountered a volunteer, also unnamed. Maybe basic journalism is also not in her forte.

Ms. Perry identified the volunteer as “A man in a blue tabard. “

I had to do the google on tabard and it turns out to be a smock or one of those long, below the waist coveralls worn by church nursery workers across the United States.

Ms. Perry described the man as, “A man in a blue tabard reading ‘I CAN HELP’. ”

Ms. Perry writes, “A man in a blue tabard reading “I CAN HELP” explains the pandemic was rather good for the museum, which is run by volunteers.“

I had to stop and think for a sec.

The pandemic was rather good for the museum.

Well, I thought, that’s one positive thing from covid.

It got volunteers to volunteer at the place in which something strange or interesting occurred every few feet.

Then Ms. Perry quotes the unnamed man in the blue tabard reading ‘I CAN HELP.’

“People just sat at home doing nothing,” he says, “and they thought, I could be doing something, instead.”

Now in the third summer of covid, malaise has set in.

I was down near the tourist center of my little oceanside community the other day and the lack of spark, the lack of vacation excitement, the lack of adult joy of being a little kid again, was overwhelming.

I can sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of Kings.

Or I can think I could be doing something.

Beyond thinking is the doing of doing something.

I’ll better go to the beach.

Something.

7.5.2022 – combination of

combination of
silence panic upheaval
that I didn’t choose

Adapted from the line:

There was a lot of big talk during the pandemic as we used that eerie combination of silence and panic to re-evaluate our priorities. Fear of change evaporates when everywhere you look there is upheaval you didn’t choose.

In the article, ‘Let’s leave the city! Let’s get a dog! Let’s get a divorce!’ Do we regret our pandemic life changes? by Zoe Williams.

Ms. Williams writes, “To regret that a decision wasn’t made sooner can be seen as reverse “what if?” thinking; even while it is painful to think of time wasted and bad situations endured, it is psychologically protective in that it reinforces the decision.”

1.27.2022 – I saw a penny

I saw a penny
picked it up, all that day …
wondered about change

I saw a penny in the parking lot the other day.

Bright and shiny, I knew it had to be new.

I checked first to make sure it was face up.

You do not pick up any penny that is face down.

I guess like an upside down horseshoe, all the luck runs out.

This one was face up so I picked it up.

I looked at Abraham Lincoln.

He has been there on the penny a lot longer than I have been here.

Mr. Lincoln has been on the penny since 1909, the 100th anniversary of his birth.

That was the first time a US President’s likeness went on a coin.

I read somewhere that the likeness of Abraham Lincoln on a penny is supposed to be the most viewed representation of any work of art in the history of the world.

Back in 1976, Braniff Airlines commissioned Calder to design the color scheme of one of their Boeing Airliners for the Bicentennial.

This red white and blue flying work of art was unveiled at Dulles International Airport and then flown on a tour of United States airports that included Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Grand Rapids had always been a bit Calder nutz and the First Lady, Betty Ford, (this story is fun and you can read the documented high level government discussion) would be part of the ceremony in Washington so Grand Rapids was added to the list of cities for the debut flight and the plane was added to the Braniff fleet.

At some point after that, Braniff issued a press release that this painted plane was the single most viewed work of art in history.

I think the numbers included anyone and everyone who ever looked up and said, “The plane, The plane” whether they knew what they were seeing or not or even if they were aware of the plane was painted by Calder.

I mean fly it over New York City and you can count 8,000,000 views.

I think Braniff accounted for their paying customers the same way which is why you don’t hear about Braniff anymore.

But Mr. Lincoln tops the list over total views of any artistic likeness, counting all the times that likeness has been reproduced and viewed.

I looked at the penny for a second or two.

It was dated 2021.

It hit me that this was the first time I had seen a 2021 penny.

Maybe even the first time, that I remembered anyway, that I have seen a penny with a date in the 2020’s.

Is it really 2021?

Really?

How DID that happen?

When did that happen?

In 2020 there was a feeling that the month of March lasted about 12 weeks.

I feel like 2021 never really took place.

Wasn’t out of the house often.

Rarely had situations where I bought or paid for something other than gas or a meal.

And never ever did I use paper money.

As for coins.

You don’t see change much anymore and so much has changed.

And I do feel changed somehow.

Or at least disconnected from the time before Covid.

I also don’t much like to look at pennies.

It was the writer, Jim Harrison, who once wrote that you aren’t old as long as keep finding pennies that are older than you in your pocket.

I used to carry a 1959 penny just for insurance.

But I can’t find it.

I haven’t thought about it years.

And now that it is on my mind, I am going find a 1959 penny.

After all, since moving to Hilton Head, where the median age is 59, I became middle aged all over again.

PS – According to what you can learn online, when Braniff went bankrupt, the Calder planes were sold at auction and the paint was sand blasted off. One website where they keep track of such things, says that the specific Boeing 727 that had been painted Red White and Blue was used as a prop in the movie Bad Boys and the last time anyone sees that specific (without the Calder Art) plane is at the end of the movie when it is blown up.