a very strange thing
happened to brain this morning
a very strange thing

Based on the headline I saw the other day that read: “A Very Strange Thing Happened To The Brain Of Brian Windhorst This Morning. Very Strange.“

It was a story about a trade in the NBA from a blog where the writer got rolling in the style of someone I know who uses the perpendicular pronoun, I.

This feller, Chris Thompson, produced this paragraph.

Do you see it? Do I have to map it out for you? The Utah Jazz, by trading away a guy who scored seven points per game last season, have left an unmistakable clue for those with their third eyes open that, ah, hmm. That a team with a new general manager and a new head coach and an unhappy vibe and a track record of playoff disappointment might be engaged in a little bit of an offseason makeover? Wow, yeah, actually I am having a hard time getting super worked-up over this, uh, revelation.

This was trying to explain the strange thing, the very strange thing that happended to poor Brian Windorst’s brain.

I am trying to figure out what strange thing, what very strange thing happens to most folks brains these days.

I am trying to figure out what strange thing, what very strange thing happens to my brain when I wake up.

I DO need someone to see it.

I DO need someone to map it out for me.

For other reasons, I feel like the Grand Vizier. who in the story, never left an audience with Sultan without touching his head to make sure it was still on his shoulders.

institutional
core – White House staff Cabinet
understood – wanted

Reading Doris Kearns Godwin’s book on LBJ, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (Copyright © 1976, 1991), I was stopped by this paragraph that she wrote about the Presidency of John F. Kennedy.

Ms. Godwin wrote:

The most important decision a President makes concerns what he wants to do with the office, what range of issues he wants to recognize. The challenge is to create boundaries for the office, to select among possible goals. John Kennedy had set that agenda for his successor: tax reduction, the civil rights bill, federal aid to education, executive action to improve life in the cities, medical care for the aged, and plans for a poverty program. In the two years and ten months before November, 1963, Kennedy had denned for himself and for his Presidency a series of purposes, or what Richard Neustadt calls “irreversible commitments to denned courses of action.” The commitments implied the selection of a particular clientele and the shaping of an institutional core – a White House staff and a Cabinet – that understood the kind of Presidency John Kennedy wanted.

I could not help but updated the passage for today.

Trump had denned for himself and for his Presidency a series of purposes, or what Richard Neustadt calls “irreversible commitments to denned courses of action.” The commitments implied the selection of a particular clientele and the shaping of an institutional core – a White House staff and a Cabinet – that understood the kind of Presidency Donald Trump wanted.

Kind of frightening in a way.

Explains much.

Consider the list of commitments compiled for JFK.

• tax reduction
  
• the civil rights bill
  
• federal aid to education
  
• executive action to improve life in the cities
  
• medical care for the aged
  
• plans for a poverty program

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

To quote Francis Urquhart, “You might very well think that – I couldn’t possibly comment.”

impossible found
civilization on fear
hatred cruelty

Then the voice asks, “why not?”

Based on this passage from George Orwell’s book, 1984.

Winston Adams is being questioned by O’Brien.

‘You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a
dream. It is impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty.
It would never endure.’

‘Why not?’

‘It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit
suicide.’

‘Nonsense. “

‘You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting
than love. ‘

‘Why should it be? ‘

‘And if it were, what difference would that make?‘

it over or just
beginning fasten seatbelts
be a bumpy night

This is going to be a long hot summer.

So many threads in the tapestry that will be the history of the year 2022.

So many story lines to follow.

Hands covering my face but with my fingers spread over my eyes so I can see.

Right now, I can say it’s not over.

I can say it’s just beginning.

I can say, fasten your seatbelts.

I can say, it’s going to be a bumpy night.

Wake me when we get to over.

The text of the today’s haiku is adapted from the screenplay from the 1950 movie “All About Eve” by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Thinking about movies and the current passing show and the time of year, the movie, Long Hot Summer comes to mind.

Based on William Faulkner’s writings, the movie has Orson Welles, as Will Varner deliver this line about an abandoned house:

The man that built this place, his name’s forgotten.

This was his dream and his pride.

Now it’s dust.

Must be a moral there somewhere.

give the blues a chase
find a sunny place can cure
your ills with sunshine

From the song, Little Sunshine by Irving Berlin and sung here in the video below, in such a way that you cannot help but smile, by Tatiana Eva-Marie & Avalon Jazz Band.

A lot of cobwebs in your head
You’re getting rusty, so you said
You’re feeling badly and everything looks grey
You’re getting worried, yes indeed

Simple?

Yes!

Simplistic?

Maybe so.

Right now I am ready and willing to accept simplistic.

And the existence of songs like this from over 100 years ago, give me some hope, some piece of mind, some perspective.

Things have looked pretty bad before.

And growing up in West Michigan, the 2nd most overcast location in North America (after Seattle) I understand how much climate can play a role in my daily outlook.

My first year of living in the Atlanta area, I again and again commented how much just the presence of the sunshine, the quality of the light in the south, made me feel good.

Right now, sunshine seems to be about it in my cabinet of things that are good for what ails you.

All things considered, at least it is not the winter of our discontent, and while it is the summer of our discontent, there is sunshine.

The book of Matthew, Chapter 5, verse 45 reminds me that God ‘causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous‘.

So I will not begrudge anyone access to the sunshine or the rain.

I will embrace it as it I can.

Here are the lyrics, written sometime during the years 1927–1931.

A lot of cobwebs in your head
You’re getting rusty, so you said
You’re feeling badly and everything looks grey
You’re getting worried, yes indeed
I know exactly what you need
A little sunshine will make you feel OK

Give the blues a chase
Find a sunny place
Go and paint your face, with sunshine
Pay your doctor bills
Then throw away his pills
You can cure your ills, with sunshine