12.2.2020 – stoic straight-talking

stoic straight-talking
unclear how this differs from
rest of the country

One Saturday afternoon some time ago, at a backyard neighborhood graduation party, I was sitting at a table between Fred Meijer of Meijer Thrifty Acres fame and Mr. and Mrs. DeKorne of DeKorne’s Furniture store fame.

Both big names if you grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the late 1900’s like I did.

The occasion was to recognize the Ph.d of the son-in-law of our neighbor, Dr. Julius Franks, the University of Michigan’s first black All American football player.

It was an interesting neighborhood.

All these folks and me and my family.

I am happy to report that Mr. Meijer was about an unassuming billionaire as you could meet and the DeKorne’s were just folks.

Mr. Meijer was telling stories about his family history and how they worked up from a one location grocery store started by his father to the huge success Meijer’s was today.

BTW, yes, we call it Meijer’s not Meijer, because it was Fred’s store.

Mr. Meijer took his story all the way back to the Netherlands and how, had the family not emigrated to the US, the story would have been different as the family just would not have made it over in Holland.

So I looks at Mr. Meijer and I says, “Gosh Fred, I guess you aren’t Fries?”

The DeKorne’s laughed so hard they fell out of their chairs.

This story will either make you laugh out loud and shake your head at my daring or you will shake your head and say to yourself, ‘I don’t get it?’

If you are Dutch you are in the club and you are laughing.

See, there is Dutch and there is Dutch or at least there is Dutch and there is Fries.

FYI Fries is pronounced FREEEEESE.

It is a word not from the Dutch, but the Frysian language, or Fries. 

Fryslân is the name of the Dutch province in which Fries is spoken: Friesland. 

Those Fries think they are so smart, they need their own language.

Full disclosure here, I am or at least my family is NOT Fries.

My family is from Groningen.

I am talking about the twelve provinces of the Netherlands.

If you are Dutch and not Fries you say that … those Fries, they think they are better than everybody else.

If you are Fries, you say that … those Fries, we ARE better than everybody else.

I remember once meeting the father of a friend who in conversation asked me all sorts of seemingly benign questions about my family and background and such and then out of the blue says, “you must be Fries …” with an approving smile.

I just nodded and smiled back.

So why am I bringing all this up today?

The Dutch and the American’s play in the 2022 World Cup next week.

Reading about the game and the two teams, I came across the article, The Giant World Cup Rookie and an Enduring Dutch Mystery: The Netherlands is Europe’s most reliable talent factory. Unless you need a goalkeeper (click here to read pdf) by Rory Smith.

Mr. Smith relates in depth the problems Dutch teams have in developing great goalies and discusses the current Dutch goalkeeper, Andries Noppert.

Mr. Smith writes: “He’s a real Frisian,” defender Virgil van Dijk said last week, referring to the part of the Netherlands where Noppert grew up, a place famed for its stoicism and straight-talking.

Mr. Smith they goes on and writes, “(It is unclear how this differs from the rest of the country.)”

Those parentheses are in the original.

It is unclear how this differs from the rest of the country?

Huh what?

Mr. van Dijk said “He’s a real Frisian.”

How could be that be unclear?

How could be he be MORE clear.

Boy howdy!

Mr. Smith then quotes the Dutch Coach, Louis van Gaal, who said of goalkeeper Noppert, “He has the sort of personality that means he would not be too impressed by this championship. It would be a lot tougher, after all, being a policeman.“

Yep, that’s it.

The sort of personality that means he would not be too impressed by this championship.

That guy must be Fries.

12.1.2022 – morning drive across

morning drive across
salt marsh tidal flats under
live oaks spanish moss

Not so long ago, my morning drive was into downtown Atlanta, a commute rated in the top ten worst in America.

Today I reminded myself of that drive as I made my way to work on a island on the Atlantic Coast.

Atlanta.

Atlantic.

Atlanta was paved over roadways as far as the eye could see.

The road to Island is carved out of marsh grass and laid over swamp and tidal flats and over the inner coastal waterway.

The road to Atlanta went under other roads and light poles for lights that often didn’t work either because the city hadn’t paid the bill or someone had stolen the copper wire that connected the lights.

The road to the Island runs under live oaks and spanish moss.

It is a different drive.

In December, the sun, just minutes before having risen out of the ocean, shines into the eyes of anyone making the drive.

The going is slow and the road is full of cars but the amount cars, if you counted all of them, would total somewhere around 1% of the total number of cars that were on the roads in Atlanta.

With the magic that can be technology I can drive along with music playing in the car to match the mood.

There is something about driving along over a salt marsh and tidal flats and over water and under live oaks and spanish moss while listening to Appalachian Spring.

I don’t care if it is December.

11.30.2022 – feel joy suddenly

feel joy suddenly
unexpectedly do not
hesitate give in

Based on the words and thoughts expressed in the abstract poem, Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

With apologies, I want to repeat the last lines, in what my sister, Lisa, calls ‘my short sentence style.’

It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins.

Anyway, that’s often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty.

Joy is not made to be a crumb.

As for my ‘style’ I am reminded of the story of Winston Churchill getting a hair cut.

The barber asked, ‘What style?’

Too which Mr. Churchill replied with something like, “A man of my limited resources cannot be called upon to have a style. Just get on with it.’

As for my sister Lisa.

She is the one who told me about Mary Oliver.

11.29.2022 – of virtuosic

of virtuosic
reticence, a silk of sound
inward and wistful

Music critics get to use the best words.

In a recent review of the New York Philharmonic titled, At the Philharmonic: a Taste of Holiday Bounty: Stéphane Denève leads a program of extravagantly colorful French works, with the pianist Víkingur Ólafsson as the soloist in a Ravel concerto, Zachary Wolfe GOT TO WRITE:

It’s not that his touch is diffuse; it’s as clean as marble. And it’s not that the tempos he and Denève chose for the framing movements were slower than normal. But the effect Ólafsson got throughout, of a kind of virtuosic reticence, could be described in the same words I used for his performance in February: a “silk of sound, inward-looking and wistful in both major and minor keys, in both andante and allegro.

1st to have a job where you are paid to go to concerts in New York City.

Then to have job where you are paid to go to concerts in New York City and then be allowed, no, expected, to write about these concerts using some of the best words and the best USE of words that you can imagine.

Thanksgiving came a day early at the New York Philharmonic this year: the calories, the juicy fat, the whipped cream, the fun, the sense of endless bounty

Some pianists lean on the factory-machine regularity, the bright lucidity, of those parts

… opened the concert with an extravagance that offers proof of the survival of the orchestrational panache of the French tradition: its lurid lushness and sly squiggles, brassy explosions and sensual strings

The Philharmonic played well throughout, riding the many waves and swerves of intensity and pigment, from dewy dawns to mellow dusks

IT IS JUST NOT FAIR.

But I have this blog and I can write about the words.

And I can applaud the use of the words and thoughts.

And I can fell a little smug.

Mr. Wolfe notes that the soloist, Víkingur Ólafsson, played a tender Rameau encore.

I bet I know what he played.

I bet I know because in a post back in April, I recommended that you listen to playing Rameau.

I made another bet in that post.

I bet that if you listened to the piece through the link I had on the page, I bet that  you would instantly become happier.

I hold with that statement today.

4.10.2022 – do you want to hear

11.28.2022 – how can that creepy

how can that creepy
guy be a hero to you
all in big trouble

Commenting on the ’60s and Lyndon Johnson, Doris Kearns Godwin writes in her book on LBJ, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, that:

“How in the hell can that creepy guy be a hero to you?” Johnson asked me after we saw The Graduate in the movie theater on his ranch.

“All I needed was to see ten minutes of that guy, floating like a big lump in a pool, moving like an elephant in that woman’s bed, riding up and down the California coast polluting the atmosphere, to know that I wouldn’t trust him for one minute with anything that really mattered to me.

And if that’s an example of what love seems like to your generation, then we’re all in big trouble.

All they did was to scream and yell at each other before getting to the altar.

Then after it was over they sat on the bus like dumb mutes with absolutely nothing to say to one another.

Don’t know why but I never imagined LBJ watching The Graduate.

Now that I know, I am not one bit surprised by his reaction.

The scary part, now in my 60s, I am not sure that I don’t disagree.

What was the quote sometimes attached to Mr. Churchill?

To be 25 and not be a liberal is to have no heart.

To be 50 and not be a conservative is to have no brain.