Resolved for you: Everybody selfie!

I am going to suggest a New Year's resolution for everyone: Do your own #365feministselfie in 2019.

Technology problems derailed my second time around. Although I finally got many pictures uploaded, posting them all at once did not really seem helpful. However, for both my first completed attempt and my second attempt I never actually started on January 1st, tracking a calendar year. That's what I'm going to do now, and you can do it with me.

If the point before was to be visible - facing yourself and the world - that is needed now more than ever. There are many forces working to diminish individuals now. That is especially true for women. There is pressure on us to smile and look good. Seeing yourself at first is a reminder that you are not meeting those expectations.

Here is the way that it transforms: when you do start looking at yourself every day, it is easier to like yourself. The beauty standards are stupid and superficial, ignoring so much that is wonderful, and the double standard where attractiveness is more important for women is ridiculous, and you are a good person so it is good to see you.

(Maybe if you are not a good person it can inspire you to change.)

I have to admit that I think some pretty painful things are coming up for me in 2019. I hope there are good things too, but there are going to be things that hurt. There will be days I won't have a smile, and days I will want to hide from the world.

That's what makes this important. It is not just that I am a person, and one who is fat and aging, but also that I have pains and imperfections and heartaches along with the joys and abilities. None of those things diminish my worth; they are an integral part of my humanity. By committing to do this I am committing not to hide from any of it.


It's important to take the daily selfies, and it's important to post them. I post on Twitter and Facebook, but Instagram would be a perfectly logical place to post, as would Tumblr. I can totally see creating a blog for it (Blogger is easy to use), especially if you decide to post weekly instead of daily. I don't recommend posting less frequently than weekly, as it quickly becomes a pain and drags on momentum.

Do use the hash tag, because then it connects you to something bigger. You are an individual, and your selfies show you as that individual, but you are also a part of the human family, a part of the world. Remember and celebrate that.

Men among my readers, of course you should do it, and of course you should use the same hash tag. Perhaps this will help you to embrace feminism as well as yourself, and we should all be feminists.

I am including some of my old posts on the topic, and some posts that have influenced me.

Do it.

I'll be looking for your pictures.


https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-year-of-selfies.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/07/when-selfies-stick.html
http://www.shakesville.com/2018/01/365feministselfie.html
http://www.vivalafeminista.com/2013/12/365feministselfie-are-you-in.html

Band Reviews: Null 'N' Void and Sly Antics

I'm getting in two fairly new bands with not many releases today.

Null 'N' Void is a three piece alternative band from Newcastle with a strong grunge vibe. They currently only have one self-titled song, but that song reminds me of Pearl Jam.

I prefer it when I have a little more to go on, but they will probably be fine.

https://www.facebook.com/NullNVoid18/

https://nullnvoid1.bandcamp.com/track/nnv

https://twitter.com/NullNVoid8


Sly Antics

Head South and West for about two hours to get to Manchester for another alternative band, Sly Antics. With four tracks, it is easier to get a grasp on this band.

There is some pretty aggressive guitar, but that doesn't override the strong sense of funk, especially on "Motion". The intro to "Lights Go Down" encourages head pounding, but the body of the song is a sort of hard blues (which feels very Manchester-appropriate).

The band likes to say their sound is like "being slapped in the face with a box of stale cereal", but I think they sound pretty fresh.

http://slyantics.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/slyantics

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt_m0y2G2dDKCIV4DqBQHsA

https://twitter.com/slyantics

Band Review: Intaferon

Back at the end of 2014, I read Lori Majewski's Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs that Defined the 1980s. The chapters were primarily done in interview form with band members who had done significant songs, ending with five related themes or types of bands. That could mean five songs about nuclear war or five bands with two men and one woman, with some connections being more tenuous than others.

The book was primarily a fun reminder of a good times and good music, but there were a few pauses. Some bands were much more active than I'd realized, or I remembered the names of bands but knew nothing about their catalogs. There were even a few bands that I'd never heard of, which seems wrong given the way I'd devoured Star Hits back in the day. Of these, the band with the lowest output was Intaferon.

You'd think with two men named Simon and high cheekbones that I would have heard someone exclaiming over them at some point. The only explanation I can come up with is that they were active in 1983 and 1984, and things really started kicking off in 1985.

Their music has had a life beyond that. "Get Out of London" (the song referenced in the book) may be from 1983, but it was used in The Wild Thornberrys Movie in 2002 and in a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie the year before that. "Steamhammer Sam" was used in Max Headroom. It seems unlikely that the former band members were doing that much promotion to get into media; was it just the power of their electronic drum beats?

It is possible that the men's hearts weren't in it so much. Simon Fellowes became a novelist, and Simon Gillham became a philosophy lecturer after doing his doctoral work on Nietzsche (they sure sound like New Wave artists). At the same time, they have both released more music on their own.

I don't know how 80s-ish their later music sounds, but it does seem possible that I will eventually find out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intaferon

Christmas break

I am taking a couple of days off from blogging. There will definitely be music reviews this week, and maybe a post Wednesday.

Band Review: Tony Cuic

The downside of reviewing Tony Cuic or TC Originals is that there will be broken links and suspended accounts, which can be very frustrating. I had to do some searching, but all of these links are good, at least for now.

Getting past that, though, you have rock in the vein of a dad having fun, and that's okay.

I think the beat on "Lying to Me" is really strong, though it may not be his best song overall. Listening can be done easily on Soundcloud, but I advise skipping the two screaming tracks, which bothered my dog. At the same time, I do not doubt that he had fun.

https://soundcloud.com/tonestar69

https://www.reverbnation.com/tonycuic

https://www.youtube.com/user/TonyCuic

https://twitter.com/originals_c

Band Review: Hocket

I have been meaning to write about Hocket for a long time, possibly the entire five years that they have been around.

They originally ended up on my review list after being recommended by TV writer Aaron Fullerton. Over time they fell prey to my own disorganization about getting to bands from both the recommendations list and the following list, then to me being discouraged by the size of their output, and finally to my not liking them very much once I started to listen.

I understand what they are going for better now. "Hocket" is a music noun, referring to a spasm or interruption in the music, and the effect of that. Really it is more intellectual music, and music to think about, rather than to enjoy. I am sure some people do enjoy it.

To be clear, I think they are doing what they are doing well, even if I do not particularly value it. There are still no regrets about finally checking them out.

http://www.hocket.org/

https://www.facebook.com/HOCKETensemble

https://www.youtube.com/user/hocketensemble

https://soundcloud.com/hocket

https://twitter.com/HOCKETensemble

Another late night post

I have been posting very late recently.

I have also given my mother some really good days. Not good enough to help her know that she is at home, but where there is contented engagement. That takes enough time that I end up posting very late.

I have been wondering if that is worth the effort. There are always plenty of other things to do, and one thing about posting later is that fewer people read the posts. I have never really done this for the page hits, but there is still something satisfying about seeing bigger numbers there.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to give it up.

However, last night I helped a friend working on something, and it was helped by being able to refer back to previous posts I had written. I hadn't written them with her in mind, or anyone, really, but they were relevant, and having been put out there once they could be recalled.

I don't know if that is enough of a reason to keep going, but it's at least one reason why I will feel good about what I have done either way.

Of course, it is also really three blogs with daily posting between them, so I could always drop just a part, but all of the parts are important to me.

However, I do kind of have some ideas for Christmas week and New Year's week, and I certainly want to at least get to my 600th band review, because with a little effort it can be a live performance with some personal significance. Anyway, at least two more weeks.

Then we will see about the new year.

Reading integration

I started observing Native American Heritage Month 2010. At the time I would include one book that focused more on Latin America, because there are indigenous people there too. Some of the reading selections did not seem to fit right. I dropped that practice a while ago, and then I discovered there was a month for Hispanic Heritage too.

I don't know if it is a coincidence that the two months come so close together (September and November). Given their proximity, though, and my issues with mission creep, it was almost inevitable that they would start overlapping each other.

There were other factors. The source that I was using to find relevant children's books for September ended up having a lot of books, including a lot of YA. There was a book with November content that was available online for free for two weeks in October. It was not one I was likely to find in the library, so I had to start that reading early. Obviously, all of the books and how they went for their specific months will be covered eventually in different posts. Today is more about how they went together.

There is overlap between reading about indigenous people with a legacy of Spanish colonization and English colonization. There are differences too, but there are a lot of things that end up correlating and giving added depth. It is good to have these particular reading lists running into each other.

It is also notable, though, how much Black history coincides with these other two.

That is probably more so because so much of my reading focused on Cuba this year. Many slaves were brought to the Caribbean, but it went beyond that. Jews at different times fled to Cuba, and were invited to the Dominican Republic. Many people from Asia settled in Cuba. The Castro sisters who formed the band Anacaona had Chinese as well as indigenous ancestry.

It works other ways too. Russia had an exchange program with Cuba. The Russians mostly left when the Soviet Union fell, but there were Cubans in Russia who stayed. My most amazing transplant story is still that Japanese Samurai guarded silver shipments in Mexico, but there is a lot of really cool mixing that was happening all the time.

I still strongly believe in the value of focusing on specific experiences, but together they inform a broader picture. That picture is more complex and more beautiful, but it is also one that many people refuse to see, believing hard in a world much more segregated and monochromatic.

Looking back, I think one reason I stopped looking at Latin American history in November is that I understood the point of the different heritage months as a means of remembering that the history of the United States goes far beyond the white men that tend to get mentioned in the history books. Therefore, Hispanic Heritage Month would be about the Braceros program and the histories of Texas and New Mexico, and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month would be about Hawaii and Chinese immigrants building the railroad; that basically those months were for me to better understand the role of people of color in the United States.

Without having given up on that, it feels much broader now, but also more integrated. And yes, that integration is a scheduling issue, but it is also an issue of seeing more now that I have been at this for a while. Ah yes, a similar thing happened there.

And I love that. One reason I never wanted to do any post-graduate work in history is that generally that involves more and more specialization. It was always the big picture of history that was most interesting to me. I wanted to know about people and their ways. They keep making the same mistakes, but then they do these really beautiful things too. That never gets old for me.

I have read arguments against "diversity" because often that word ends up meaning looking for one person of color who is the best fit to throw in with a bunch of white people (or one woman to throw in with a bunch of men), and pay lip service to representation. Then, when that person voices any difference of opinion they face recrimination and it can get really ugly. I have seen it happen. There were usually good intentions, but not a realistic examination of what actual inclusion would mean.

If we will really look at each other, and listen, we can do better than that. That definitely involves talking to people and paying attention to their experiences now, but also, there are much worse things to do than reading books.

Reading lists - current status

I mentioned that I am working on six reading lists now.

They include the post-election one, which I have been working on since January 2017. Technically I guess it was post-inauguration. It does keep expanding, but once I realized that it was going to become so unwieldy I started letting other lists in around it. I finished a couple of books on it in October, and I will get back to it soon. It might currently include 31 finished main books, plus another 19 supplemental books and papers, plus another 20 books or research topics.

(My being this way is well-established.)

The newest list is related to death and grief. It started with two books from a subset of books I have always meant to get to, and three more were added while I was reading the first one. I think if you are following along, it is pretty clear why that would be a topic where I would feel a need for some preparation. Honestly, the first one was very helpful, or I think it will turn out to be so, but maybe not in the way that you would expect. I will write more about that in time.

The most encouraging of those lists was my gardening list. You may recall that I had one last year:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-gardening-reading-list.html

As I was wrapping up my small gardening attempts for this year (just some pumpkins and tomatoes) I thought I should get some reading done to see if there was any fall prep I should do. Of course even after I read those twelve books last year, I had more to read.

The first pleasant surprise was that really there seemed to be only four gardening books left that I needed to read. I did add one in that I had thought of as more of a biology book than a gardening book, and I did gain two additional titles to read from this reading, but really, it was only two more. So much of the frustration of reading is that it keeps requiring more reading, but that may not be a permanent problem. There may be a point where I reach enough knowledge on a topic, at least for a while.Go me!

That went along well with another thing that was going on: a growing desire to get ahead of some of my other reading.

I get new books to read so often that it feels like I will never catch up. Possibly I think of that more as I approach a new awareness month and try to select out of many options.

I don't know if I have ever written about this before, but I will periodically scroll through all of my To-Read books on Goodreads (currently 1466). It's really more compelling than soothing, but it feels like a relief when I finish. I suspect doing this periodically is one reason that titles can easily come to mind when it is a good time for me to read them.

In addition, I love organizing via spreadsheet. Tangible organization may be kind of a pipe dream for me, but I find lists comforting.

I'd had a list of books for my education make-up reading - along with a few other things I needed to get to - back before the hard drive crash. That spreadsheet may be the data that I miss the most. There was more in there than books, but there were books there. When I say there was a subset of books I've always meant to get to, that subset existed in that sheet, and then I recreated it on a sheet of paper, along with some other stuff.

Anyway, I did not try to recreate the education make-up list (yet), but I did go through and create columns of books that would work for the different awareness months, as well as capturing lists that had kind of existed mentally for sports, autism, music theory, music history, and drawing. (The drawing one had been written out before.)

I have also spent some time going through those columns and seeing which items were available through the Washington County library system, which were available through Inter-Library Loan, and color-coded them accordingly. If certain adjectives are coming to mind to describe these practices and the person who does them, I will not say you are wrong. I am okay with my being this way, but I get that it can seem weird and sad.

I did this after May, so I didn't start pulling from the first four columns until September, with my first National Hispanic Heritage Month. That is not quite done yet even as I have started working on Native American Heritage Month. I am not going to finish either of those columns this year, I can tell you that. The way they blend together is interesting, and I will write more about that tomorrow.

I really do think that I can read all of the Asian Pacific Heritage Month ones this year. Black History Month is a bit harder. Having been at it longer, my list is much larger. In fact there were several that I did not add to the column because perhaps they could also fit under another topic, but they are still there on Goodreads. (And, realistically, there are other mental lists that have still not been captured, but I am sure they will be at some future date.) However, I still believe I can do a lot, and I can do it in a more organized matter, and I can make progress.

This is truly an area where it's about the journey, no matter how much I care about the milestones. I am sometimes impatient to have knowledge, but there are a lot of good books, and a lot of interesting things out there, and that can keep me entertained for a long time.

As long as we are on the subject, I shall make a confession: When setting my reading challenge for the year, I entered 220, but in my head, it was really 240. Then I hit 220 early (now at 247), so now I kind of really want it to be 260, though I am not setting higher and higher goals like last year, which ended up being 321 out of 300, even after I raised it a few times. It is only a mental 260! (FYI, lots of comic books last year. Still a fair amount of comics and children's books this year.)

And as always, hey, friend me on Goodreads!

https://www.goodreads.com/gmharris

Band Review: Dr. Zwig

Dr. Zwig (Adam Zwig on Spotify) is a musician and psychotherapist.

When listening to the music, it is not obvious that you are listening to a psychotherapist. That is probably a good thing; it would not be ideal for the first impression to be that this musician better be capable of doing something else. However, it is clear from posts that the psychological training and experience have influenced Dr. Zwig's feelings and beliefs about music, knowing that it can be more than entertainment.

Generally here it works better as entertainment. Listening feels fine, but not transcendent. It is adult contemporary that leans toward country, and pretty mellow overall. The one song that really feels different is "Who Killed Michael Vaughn", which clearly is about war and the shared responsibility that makes no one responsible. It is also painfully awkward, like Bob Dylan on "We Are the World". 

But Dr. Zwig is doubtless a better musician than most psychotherapists.

https://drzwig.com/

https://www.facebook.com/DrZwig

https://www.youtube.com/user/adamzwig

https://twitter.com/Dr_Zwig

Band Review: Thomas E. Rouch

Thomas E. Rouch is a film composer from Melbourne.

It can be harder to characterize composers given how their work needs to adapt to the needs of different films. You can still notice things.

I particularly admire some touches on the score for Alpha Gateway. It sounds like simple piano music, mostly, but there is an amplification - perhaps - something that makes it sound more significant and more ominous.

I have not seen any of the associated films for the music I have listened to, so I can't judge how they worked for that. I can only say that listening to the music standing alone, listening is all right. That is pretty good too.

https://www.thomaserouch.com/

https://www.facebook.com/rouchcomposer

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNKP7ao_FFZXmFhyfeMwQ6g

https://twitter.com/t_e_rouch

Opening up

I want to start by saying that if you follow me on Goodreads, you might have figured out that I am doing my first National Hispanic Heritage month, but you probably couldn't.

For one thing, that is September and I am still working on it. Also (and not unrelated) I have simultaneously been working on five other reading lists. Clearly I remain me. Still, if you have noticed a lot of YA books related to Cuba, that's why.

It is probably worth remembering that when I started observing Black History month all those years ago, it was only four regular books. There were no comic books nor children's books, and no poetry. As I had not yet started doing music reviews and daily songs, there was none of that either.  So perhaps - even without having realized that this "month" was going to involve two documentaries and twenty-seven books (no comics but a lot of poetry) - I should not have felt bad that I did not really have any music reviews in mind for that month.

I did kind of have two set to review among my Twitter follows: Jose Aguilar has roots in Mexico, even if he is in California now, and The Alpacas have one member from Mexico, even if they are operating out of England. Still, it didn't feel like that much. I tried doing some searches and one band sounded like they would be great, but I tried listening to them and I hated them. I mean, if I hate a Twitter follow band, I will still review them, but searching for a band to celebrate the month and then give them a bad review? That doesn't sound right. So there were just those two.

That is part of the reason that I wanted to go see Chayag, though that would have been up my alley anyway. I thought of reviewing them, but they are less of a band and more of a workshop provider, so that didn't seem quite right. There were those two documentaries, though.

Along with the various reading lists, I have also been working through some watching lists, and one of those lists is music documentaries, which seem like good material for reasons gone into yesterday.

I knew Buena Vista Social Club would kind of relate. I was not positive that Searching for Sugar Man would, but it was relevant. Okay, not this year, but I could review a host of Cuban musicians, as well as Stephen Segarman, who is a lot like Bob Dylan but can actually sing.

Then I read The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Perez. It is a fun book - and was considered for many awards which is how I came to it - but also there are eight bands and musicians in there with Latinx heritage. That's a full month of reviews.

For Black History and Native American Heritage months, I am at the point where bands find me. February and September are covered. I have also been doing them longer. May (Asian Pacific American Heritage month) and September are still developing. A lot of my leads now come from other musicians, so every one I review could lead to more. It's not so bad.

And, if all of that sounds a little excessive to you, well more on that next week.

For now, what I want to express most is my belief that if you open yourself up, it is out there. Music is out there, and people, and books. Once you start looking, the path will appear.

Music and memory

I said yesterday that we are an opera family, but beyond that we are really a music family. We are not performers - just appreciators - but we are good at that.

One of the more precious documents from childhood is little book that one of my sisters made for Mother's Day where she thanks Mom for liking our music. She did. When her memory was more intact she could identify Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran), Morten Harket (a-ha) and James Hetfield (Metallica) by voice instantly. She still knows that she knows the others, but she can only name Simon.

I have found a new way of connecting with her through music, and it ties in with my longstanding love of libraries.

The Aloha Community Library has been able to expand their space, and therefore their offerings. In September I noticed that they were going to have a presentation of Andean music. I really wanted to go. I thought taking Mom would be fine; it ended up being wonderful.

She liked it a lot. She was engaged with it. She wanted to tell them how good they were. She wanted to make sure they were getting paid for this because they deserved it. I don't know how compensation works with library performances, but they did have CDs for sale, and I bought one.

Mom had a good time during that performance, and to have her pleasantly engaged is often I all ask for. Often it is the best that can be done. This ended up being better than that, because she remembered the CD.

It's not that she remembered exactly, but when I put the CD in, she knew it was familiar. She thought maybe it was from a movie we saw, but I reminded her of the performance, and that we went there. I don't know that I can say that she truly remembered then, because I had to tell her again, but it at least registered as something that sounded right. You have no idea how little there is that is recent and registers as familiar.

It also gave me more to work with. I have played that CD more, but also seeing that she enjoyed the Latin-flavored beats so much inspired me to dig out any possibly similar music. She has since also enjoyed tango, merengue, and Gipsy Kings.

It also means that sometimes playing music is enough. Morten (and Mags and Paul - who changed his spelling, I know how it used to be) and James (and Lars and Kurt and Cliff/Jason/Bobby) are still in there, even if she doesn't remember the names.

And the library has more performances coming.

https://www.andeanmusic.org/

https://www.wccls.org/libraries/aloha

Underappreciated

While it was often difficult finding recordings that seemed as good as different opera memories, for many of the passages there was at least a lot to choose from. There were three pieces that were more difficult.

For those, it was usually that something that struck me was not the main attraction of the opera, or even that part of the opera.

For example, there is a bird leitmotif in Wagner's Ring Cycle. I am not a huge fan of Wagner, but those are some clear pure notes. They have specific significance in the opera that is important, but on their own I still find them very beautiful.

If I had picked any section of the music containing the bird song, it would probably have been lost, but by itself it is just 15 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7oWFOiz2FU

And, it is probably the way in which it interacts with the rest of the music that gives that tiny bit its power, so perhaps having it stand alone doesn't work. At least that is something that people who study opera generally agree is important, though even then they may group it with all the other leitmotif and how it is used. I am just saying that it's pretty.

My other longstanding grievance has been with me since February 1998, in that there is just not enough respect for how beautiful “Ah Paraseusse Fille” is in Faust.

Again, it is being used for the contrast. While Faust is bitterly lamenting his old age and wasted life, the chorus is singing of a beautiful dawn. It is not just that they find the world beautiful instead of disappointing, but also that this day is just beginning. Effective, yes, but it stands so well on its own too, and you never hear it on its own. If you get an opera highlights CD, it is all about the arias. The chorus matters too. I would love to see “Ah Paraseusse Fille” get more attention, and some better recordings.

Similarly, in Aida when Radames is being tried, the focus of that scene is generally on the anguish of Amneris. I get that, but the deep condemnation of Radames by Ramfis - heightened by the silence of Radames - it is so powerful. And they often have it happening off stage or behind scenery, which doesn't really lessen the effect, but might be a little unfair (and makes finding a recording focusing on that bit hard).

A large part of this post is to laud this musical things that I like, but there is another aspect to this, in terms of family.

My family is an opera family, and even more a Verdi family. I believe my mother would love opera on her own, but there are passages that inevitably bring up memories of her father, who was always singing it.

My favorites are not my mother's favorites, which seemed wrong somehow, or like maybe I was a rebel or did not get it from her. I mean, I don't even like Aida that much, except for that scene. However, in talking about that scene with her (because I was featuring opera in my daily songs for almost a month and it was on my mind), she said it gave her chills. That is exactly what that scene does, and we are the same on it.

There are some other ways that my mother and I have connected over music recently, and I will get into that more tomorrow.

Band Review: Small Circle

Small Circle is a Philadelphia band making sweet and mellow music.

I stumbled across them accidentally when reviewing Cooler, and wanted to circle back.

(The pun wasn't intentional, but I noticed it and I'm okay with it.)

In a way, Small Circle's sound is small, but there is a courage and resoluteness behind it. Listening becomes uplifting because of that. I believe "Ritual" was the song that made the strongest impression on me, but "We Belong Here" gives a good overall feeling for the band.

I don't know of a lot of well-known bands that I can compare them too. Readers of this blog who enjoyed Faded Paper Figures might enjoy Small Circle, as well as fans of She and Him.


https://www.facebook.com/smallcirclephl/

https://smallcircle.bandcamp.com/

http://www.flowergirlrecords.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCloxgwfi_piX4EOFc3OsL6g

https://twitter.com/smallcirclephl

Band Review: Nuovo Music

Wayne Carlsen has a wide and varied musical background. With Nuovo Music, he is experimenting.

The "music" part may seem like a misnomer. More often the tracks invoke noise: traffic, machinery, and background hum.

There may not be melody. The most traditional piece is "Evening in Southern India", because it is meant to convey a person singing. Others are much more abstract.

It is obviously not to everyone's taste, but I think fans of Philip Glass may enjoy Carlsen's work.

https://www.facebook.com/nuovoadventures?skip_nax_wizard=true

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOtcttxoJGMy3ozKFj4SWuw

https://twitter.com/Nuovomusic

Opera-rah-rah!

As long as we are spending time on the daily songs, let's give some time to Opera-ctober. There were some things that were different about it.

I started it a little late. One reviewed artist had a new release set for October 3rd that I wanted to get in, and other old friends had new releases, so that was one reason. In addition, I was not positive that I could come up with 31 songs.

It's not that there aren't at least 31 good opera songs out there. Between live performances, listening on CD, and in some cases watching on television, I might not even have needed to repeat operas. Still, finding the right recordings was difficult.

I ran into the same issue during Musical May (that was not this year). I may have seen or been in a live performance that had great meaning to me, but what you can find on-line is not always the same. When you have a song that got radio play, there can be different mixes, but the version that you liked is probably out there. You might remember a live performance that wasn't recorded, but in general it is the recording industry and they literally make records.

With opera, some pieces are strong enough that the presentation doesn't matter so much. In many cases those get referenced enough that you don't need to be a big opera fan to recognize them - "La Donna E Mobile", "La Habanera", "Largo Al Factotum - even if those titles don't sound familiar, the opening bars will.

For other, I know a lot of it had to do with the staging. When I listen to recordings it doesn't sound quite the same. Similar, but not the same.

There are also two pieces that I don't think get the attention that they deserve, but I will pick up with those Monday. For right now, I am just going to revel in some opera memories that were visual as well as auditory. They are more precious to me now, because even though I still end up there periodically, I hate the current director's taste. That makes it even more tragic that the reason Robert Bailey retired was more being exhausted with fundraising than with staging productions.

• My first live opera, Rigoletto in 1998. The set was gorgeous, and looked very Italian, but I hadn't realized that they would be able to make the sun set and turn into night. I went for "La donna e mobile", but the show was beautiful for ears and eyes.
• That same season's production of Faust was the best I have seen (three versions now). There were many wonderful things about it (and I can't believe the reviewer had to ask why Faust was left with the dream Marguerite instead of Marguerite herself). The most visually stunning moment was when Mephistopheles peeked out from behind a red satin curtain, and began walking forward, pulling the curtains forward and bathing the stage in red as he detailed his plans of seduction. The peril of live theater is that on a different night the curtain got caught on something (a friend of mine was there), marring the effect, but when I saw it, it was perfect.
• Also that season (it was a really good season), they did a Julius Caesar with mostly modern dress. For "V'adoro pupille", Cleopatra was dressed in pink taffeta. It is usually staged as her performing for Caesar with some distance, and here too. However, at the start he got the end of her wrap, a very long piece of fabric that when gathered around her shoulders looked white, but when stretched out was practically transparent, except for the sequins, which you also could not see except when the light hit them. So it was like the lovers were connected by a band of twinkling stars. Probably a pretty simple costuming detail, but I thought it was magical.
• La Belle Helene came later, but it had a similar mix of modern and classical dress. The costume for Paris was jeans, a leather arm band, and long blond hair. No shirt. Later on there was a tux, and then a cassock over the jeans for a disguise, filled with pink hearts when he opened the cassock. It was silly but also pretty sexy, which left me with a ridiculous crush on Tracey Welborn that made his return for The Pearl Fishers that much more appreciated.
• I have seen I Pagliacci live at Portland Opera, and it was a good production and pairing it with Carmina Burana works, but there was another production of I Pagliacci that I saw on PBS that was fantastic. Nedda was on a swing for "Stridona Lassu" which I thought really heightened the longing and nostalgia of the aria. Then for the conclusion, the stage for the performance within the performance rotated. Instead of stabbing, Canio takes out Nedda and Silvio with single whacks of a cleaver and they fall just near each other but not touching and it is circling as Canio gives the final line. It's an abrupt ending anyway, but that was an incredibly impactful delivery.
• This is not particularly visual, but I need to look up a name. For the 2003 production of Le Nozze di Figaro, Figaro was just the best baritone. It may have stood out more because usually the tenor is the lead anyway, so it feels different to have the deeper voice leading, but he was superb.

The full list:

10/8 “La Donna E Mobilie” from Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, performed by Luciano Pavarotti

10/9 “So anch'io la virtu magica” from Donizetti's Don Pasquale, performed by Mirella Freni

10/10 “V'adoro pupille” from Handel's Julius Caesar, performed by Natalie Dessay

10/11 “O Fortuna” from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, performed by the Atlanta Symphony

10/12 "Stridona Lassu" from Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci, performed by Anna Moffo

10/13 “La Habanera” from Bizet's Carmen, performed by Elina Garanca

10/14 “Sempre libera” from Verdi's La Traviata, performed by Roberta Peters

10/15 “Je crois entendre encore” from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, performed by Lawrence Brownlee

10/16 “Non ti scordar di me” from Verdi's Il Trovatore, performed by Luciano Pavarotti

10/17 ”Barcarolle” from Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffman, performed by Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca

10/18 “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini's Turandot, performed by Daiyu Qiang

10/19 “To America I Sailed on a Ship Called Hunger” from Bolcom's A View From the Bridge, performed by Adam Walton

10/20 “This is Prophetic” from John Adams' Nixon in China, performed by Carolann Page

10/21 “Va Pensiero” from Verdi's Nabucco, performed by K&K Philharmoniker and Opernchor

10/22 “Largo al Factotum” from Rossini's The Barber of Seville, performed by Dmitri Hvorostovsky

10/23 “Scena del Giudizio” from Verdi's Aida, performed by the Teatro Greco di Taormina

10/24 “Flower Duet” from Delibes' Lakme, performed by Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca

10/25 “La galere de Cythere” from Offenbach's La Belle Helene, performed by the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra

10/26 “Quale occhio al mondo” from Puccini's Tosca, performed by Jose Carreras and Montserrat Caballe

10/27 “Ah Paraseusse Fille” from Gounod's Faust, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra

10/28 “Auto da fe” from Bernstein's Candide, performed by the Royal National Theater Company

10/29 “A cenar teco me invitasti” from Mozart's Don Giovanni, performed by Franz-Josef Selig and Carlos Alvarez

10/30 “Che faceste?” from Verdi's Macbeth, company at La Scala

10/31 “Wolf Glen Scene” from Von Weber's Der Freischutz

How I roll (and rock)

While I curate my daily songs with great care and consideration, it feels like my efforts are generally ignored. However, with the 90s list I got some feedback.

These complaints were mainly about there being better songs, specifically that Weezer has better songs than "Undone", the Lisa Lisa version of "All Cried Out" is better than the Allure version, and that "If I Had No Loot" is better than "Feels Good".

I'm not arguing. The truth is, I don't think "All Cried Out" is that great a song. Even for Lisa Lisa, I remember "Head To Toe" being much more popular - with some people having specific dance moves for it - and "Lost In Emotion" is my personal favorite, so "All Cried Out" is at best a weak third - but those are for the 80s. The 90s were not as good; we've been over that.

For the other complaints, I also agree, but I have already used many better Weezer songs and "If I Had No Loot" I remember specifically as being part of the Summer Dance Party, which was memorialized as a Spotify playlist.

This is where we get to the reason that there were many good songs from the 90s that - whether I knew them then or did not discover them until later - I did not include: I try not to do repeats.

"Basket Case" from 1994 is a very important song for me, but it and many other Green Day songs have been done. I came to The Get Up Kids late, but their songs from the 90s have all been featured. Every official Gin Blossoms release and a few songs that were never released, I have done.

I'm not saying that in six years of doing this that I have never repeated. I believe I have done a few deliberate repeats where there was a compelling (to me) reason why that specific song needed to be the song of the day, despite already having been used. I suspect that with imperfect memory I have done a few accidental repeats. I also am thinking about doing some reviewing where I do my top songs over the years of doing reviews and exploring different things. That would then be all repeats; sort of a "Greatest Hits". I am nearing 600 different bands reviewed, not counting different listening spells for things like greatest guitar songs or understanding emo. A lot of ground has been covered.

Here's the thing with that: there are so many good songs! Sure, some are better than others, but that doesn't mean the ones that aren't the best are bad. Sure, as long as I review bands that follow me on Twitter and play songs from them, there are always going to be new songs, but even with songs I just know because they got airplay, there are a lot of songs I have not yet used. Some of them are pretty great.

In retrospect, I have realized that to accurately reflect my 90s experience I should have included tracks from The Presidents of the United States of America and The Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Now that I remember that, it will probably come up eventually.

For now, I am in the middle of songs by reviewed artists, with more musicians to review, and that has its own challenges. One reviewed artist has some really harsh videos. I was tempted to not post one, but his music reflects his own trauma, and is a part of his healing. How do I leave him out?

Another artist is overdue for review, but he seems to be in the middle of a break from reality where he has removed all his music from online, possibly in response to government surveillance (which I am interpreting as a break, but maybe not; they really were spying on Hemingway). It doesn't feel right to just skip him, but there is nothing to review now.

I mention that, because the way this whole post should come together is that yes, I do love music, but I also respect music and musicians. I try to show that in the attention that I give. Many of the choices I make rely more on principle and ethics than taste.

And it suits me like that.

Found in the 90s

For my daily songs I had recently done 80s August and it was awesome! There were so many good songs. I could easily do an entire month on each individual year of the decade and I would still not run out of songs. (Therefore, that is a thing that is going to happen.) It led to me doing 90s November.

That was not as awesome. It wasn't bad either; just different. Let's spend some time on that.

For one thing, I knew going in that it was during the 90s that I started to disconnect from contemporary music. I wasn't even sure if I would know that many 90s songs. I looked at the top hits year by year, and came up with enough.

The first thing that was not surprising was that the bulk of the songs that I wanted to use came early in the decade. You could still hear some of the 80s New Wave influence. Also, I was still regularly watching MTV and VH1, because they were still playing music videos. The Real World  would start in 1992, and that would be the beginning of the end of television as a means of me finding new music.

Of course the other big divider was my mission. 1990 through 1992 was finishing high school and starting college. I entered the Missionary Training Center February 3rd, 1993, and I don't think any of my 1993 songs were heard by me that year. Until August 8th, 1994, I was not listening to any non-religious music.

Now, songs did sometimes still enter my consciousness. "Rumpshaker" was released by Wreckx-n-Effect in 1992, but I don't remember hearing it then. It was playing a lot in Fresno in the summer of 1993. It was the same deal with "Jump" by Kriss Kross. Also, there was a school meeting of some kind that we were at (I think it tied into some tutoring, but can't remember for sure), where for examples of consciousness and communication, they talked about the similarities between "Whoot There It Is" from 95 South and "Whoomp! (There It Is)" by Tag Team, and how it seemed to originate from an old cheer, but I never heard the actual songs until later.

I almost had nothing for 1994, but in 1995, back in school, yes, I remember hearing and really liking Real McCoy. I also remember seeing a dorm-mate with "eal McCoy" on the back of a T-shirt, and trying to build a conversation off of that, but it was a Neal McCoy shirt. Awkward!

(I broke year order to put "Run Away" on Thanksgiving, in commemoration of the Turkey Trot, even though it didn't go as planned. If not that, I would have gone up to 1999 for "Thank You".)

Still, the quantity of songs liked does peter out as the decade goes on. Some of that was the direction that music had gone in. Rap got much harder (more gangster) and I never got into grunge. There were other things that I could have put, but I didn't. I will write more about that tomorrow.

Overall the thing that really impresses me is that even for the years when it seemed like I was pretty much living in the past musically, there were songs that I knew for every year. Culture and art permeate. That is okay, though it is valuable to be aware of it.

So 90s November ended up feeling all right. It wasn't as exhilarating as 80s August, but there was no chance of that anyway. I mean, that's just science.

The full list:

1990

11/1 “Feels Good” by Tony! Toni! Toné!

11/2 “Been Caught Stealing” by Jane's Addiction

11/3 “Because I Love You (The Postman Song)” by Stevie B

11/4 “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode

11/5 “If Wishes Came True” by Sweet Sensation

11/6 “Blaze of Glory” by Jon Bon Jovi

1991

11/7 “All 4 Love” by Color Me Badd

11/8 “Rush Rush” by Paul Abdul

11/9 “You Could Be Mine” by Guns N' Roses

11/10 “The One and Only” by Chesney Hawkes

11/11 “Right Here Right Now” by Jesus Jones

11/12 “You Don't Have To Go Home Tonight” by The Triplets

1992

11/13 “I'm Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred

11/14“Let's Get Rocked” by Def Leppard

11/15 “Tennessee Arrested” by Development

11/16 “Finally” by CeCe Peniston

1993

11/17 “Come Undone” by Duran Duran

11/18 “The River of Dreams” by Billy Joel

11/19 “Boom! Shake the Room” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince

11/20 “(I Can't Help) Falling in Love With You” by UB40

11/21 “Regret” by New Order

1995

11/22 “Run Away” by Real McCoy

1994

11/23 “Undone (The Sweater Song)” by Weezer

1996

11/24 “How Bizarre” by OMC

11/25 “It's All Coming Back To Me Now” by Celine Dion

11/26 “Where Do You Go” by No Mercy

1997

11/27 “All Cried Out” by Allure

1998

11/28 “This Kiss” by Faith Hill

1999

11/29 “So High” by Tal Bachman

11/30 “Thank You” by Dido

Band Review: Supaman

Last year I finally finished reviewing every rapper mentioned in the Tom Barnes Mic article, I thought. Then I realized that in addition to the eight featured songs and rappers, there was also a passing reference to Crow rapper Supaman. The article focused on newer, lesser known artists (at least for 2015) but what about the established rapper, who had been releasing albums since 2005?

This week I have been listening to Supaman.

I have to add that there is a level on whichI am not even capable of evaluating him. In addition to some traditional rap albums, there are several collections of tools and loops that I have no idea how you would use. He seems to be fairly prolific for that, but I have no basis for comparison. That's perhaps one thing about seeking out different artists. You learn a lot, but also there are things you just don't know.

Some things you can do. For example, I did not listen to any Rezawrecktion, the group he worked with early on. That could be a future review, but this review focuses on his solo work, which is pretty good hip-hop.

(I am also pretty sure I will add Maimouna Youssef, with whom Supaman recently collaborated, to the review list.)

My first time through, his 2013 release Gorilla resonated with me more, especially the parts about identity and Superman; it felt like a window into him.

However, on further listening I have to say that 2018's Illuminatives is a stronger record.

I believe that fits in with a pre-existing trajectory of continuous improvement, but with longer gaps between the two most recent albums, it becomes more obvious. Supaman continues to grow as an artist. I do not doubt that Standing Rock is a part of that - I have yet to see a native artist who has not been affected - but I suspect Supaman has been actively working on growth for a long time.

That's reason enough to check him out.

https://supamanhiphop.com

https://www.facebook.com/Supamanhiphop/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK3FcmL4OXk9Dp2QtAitFEg

https://twitter.com/Supamanhiphop

Band Review: Lido Pimienta

Lido Pimienta is a singer and songwriter from Colombia but in Canada, and with Afro-Colmbian and Waayu roots.

With that mix of elements, you could hear sounds from anywhere. I watched Latcho Drom recently, and some of Pimienta's music reminded me of the Romany music that was featured, especially on "Quiero Jardines".

The variety does make the music hard to describe. Higher pitches are often used, possibly as a way of bringing attention to what is overlooked but perhaps also contrasted with a low droning. I get a sense of rebelling against being ignored, but also against the alienation that could come from accepting the ignorance of the world. I found the opening on "Agua" instantly arresting. That is the opening track on her 2016 album, La Papessa, and a good starting place.

Pimienta was honored with a 2017 Polaris Prize. It was Digital Drum's tweet about her win that led me to do this review.

https://www.facebook.com/Lido.Pimienta.Musica/

https://soundcloud.com/lido-pimienta 

https://www.youtube.com/user/antirecords/featured

https://twitter.com/LidoPimienta

Not as embarrassed as I could be

I did not complete the Turkey Trot. I barely started it. I am okay with that.

I know between 2400 and 2500 people were signed up, and there didn't seem to be nearly that many people there. There may have been people who did even less. I remember hearing someone near me say that he would have been fine with taking the group picture and going back to bed. Still, I was there.

I'd had concerns about timing, but I had worked out a very specific plan for getting up early, getting dinner going, how long I thought the Trot should take, and what needed to be done for the Thanksgiving meal when I got back. The only thing I could not manage was the right amount of time for the rolls to rise, so I gave my sisters instructions for that.

Otherwise I was very organized. Wednesday night I set the turkey pan and the foil on the stove, next to the slow cooker and the brown sugar for the ham. I usually just cook the ham after the turkey comes out of the oven, but my sisters had expressed interest in this video showing slow cooker ham with pineapple and brown sugar, so I tried it. (I didn't care for it, but they thought it was good.) Other non-perishable items were on the counter. The pan for the rolls and the cooking spray and plastic wrap were on the opposite counter. My clothes were laid out with my race supplies in my hoodie pocket. I was set.

The morning went really smoothly. I had built in time for the animals to have needs, having learned from the last time we needed to be somewhere early. I got up, prayed, fed them, started the turkey, started the ham (which included de-boning it, because otherwise it would not have fit in the slow cooker, but I had tested that). I checked my blood sugar, medicated, and ate breakfast. The only variation in the plan was that I decided I would really feel better showering before, even if I would need to shower again later. I did that and still made my bus.

I was pretty proud of this. Planning and preparation had paid off. Then I was there at the starting line and it just didn't feel right. I tried to shake it off, because I had really been looking forward to it and I had written about it enough that people could totally have asked me about it. How could I not do it? But the mental "No!" was really strong, so I turned off into a parking lot, assessed, and decided this wasn't my thing. I considered doing something else, like going and walking downtown again, or this walking route I have around home, but ultimately going home felt best, so that's what I did.

In an effort to pack light I had not brought my keys. I did not want to pound on the door and get everyone out of bed, so I sent a text to Maria around the time where I know her alarm was set (also knowing that she was likely to hit "snooze") and Julie came and picked me up at the transit center. I did feel like a loser, but having gotten up, set a holiday meal going, and made it there while everyone else was in bed, no one at home was calling me that.

It was disappointing, but the decision to stop still felt right overall.

I think there were three possible factors in terms of why it felt more like "Do not do this!" rather than "This is not going to be fun, but push through anyway." (And I had expected it to be fun. I was just on that hill two weeks ago and I liked it.)

One is that I had not gotten enough sleep. I should have gone to bed earlier anyway, but then I just could not get to sleep. That was probably from having too much to do. Maybe most of the participants let other people cook.

Also, it is starting to get to be time to replace my shoes. My feet did not feel great, but again, I was wearing them two weeks ago and they worked fine.

Finally, my insulin dosage was recently changed, and I could not rule out that the exertion would lead to a plunge in blood sugar. Testing when I got home it was fine, but that was without doing much trotting. I had supplies for that, but let's say it plunged when I had gone up the hill and down and was at the part where you needed to start going up again - even with supplies on hand that would have sucked.

That last one is the biggest concern, where I sometimes wonder if my goal of doing a triathlon at 50 (for which the Turkey Trot was a step along the way) is realistic. If it's not, I can still get better at running, and get back into cycling, and develop some form for swimming (I enjoy swimming, but I know I could be better at it). The purpose of the goal was to know that I am entering 50 vital and moving, and I can still do that.

I also have to admit that I am not very vital now. Well, there are ups and downs to it. I do have some strength and endurance; they also get tested a lot in ways that are not fitness-related.

My post titles this week have been awkward and not at all snappy; they have also conveyed the moods of the posts and of my life right now. Said life is currently full of compromise and adjustment, but also one in which I am growing a lot, and where successes are small but there are still some.

I wanted to complete the event, I do not regret not doing so, and I still have some pride at my organization and execution of the morning right up until the time that I veered off to the side to look at the rest of the crowd and decide I did not belong in it. I have questioned whether I should have signed up in the first place. It felt like a good idea at the time.

That one is more complicated. If I had worked more on improving my sleeping patterns, or if I had been more proactive in working with the doctor so that my insulin dosage was already correct, would it have worked? But - and I say this fully believing that I do not achieve maximum efficiency - those things are hard, and I already have a lot of hard things to do. Navigating insurance and scheduling an appointment where I have coverage for Mom and am not conflicting with any of her appointments? There's a reason why yesterday was the first time I'd seen a dentist in two years. (Which did not turn out terrible, but I don't recommend that.)

So, that was my Thursday, and my Thanksgiving, but also this is very much me.

Previously avoided fruit

I'd said that my tendency to use technology as long as possible was partly a matter of personality and partly a matter of economic situation. For the personality part, I hate wasting things.

I'm not saying that is completely disconnected from being poor now (and in the past), but it is also largely environmental. It stems from knowing that recycling doesn't help as much as reusing and reducing, and not being very materialistic and never really liking shopping (except for books, but I prefer to use libraries now).

I mention this because the reason my technology problems are ending is that my older sister found a good Black Friday deal on an All-in-One PC and bought it for me. I still need to get it set up (including wrapping the cables), but it will be brand new and I should be able to use it for a long time.

I do tend to hate Black Friday.

It's been easy to avoid participating in it. It is also easy to look down on participation in it, but I can't do that.

I know many people like to look and mock those who stampede like animals for cheap televisions. That strikes me a little bit as Hunger Games watching, though usually there aren't many deaths. Still, like that "People of Wal-Mart" page; you know, they are people. There may indeed be bad choices there, but many issues could relate to poverty, affecting access to healthcare and nutritional access and lots of other things.

Life is hard, and not having a lot of money doesn't mean you stop needing or wanting things. If some people take the chance, I can't fault them.

I have written about this before, but I avoided shopping at Wal-Mart for many years. That was a principled stand because of their impact on communities, and the way they get government subsidies by way of both corporate tax breaks and relief programs for their underpaid employees. Then they became the only affordable source of insulin. There are principles I could die for, but that doesn't seem like a reasonable choice here.

This year I have benefited from Black Friday. I would like a different economic system, but working within the current one, this is where I am.

I read some discussions on it on Twitter, and one tweet from @SeriousTyberius especially stayed with me. I will link, but also quote it:

https://twitter.com/SeriousTyberius/status/1066085910272339969

The leaders didn't say, no one ride buses. They provided a car pooling framework, made demands known, and used their power collectively. I've seen too many folks in the same working class bracket going off on each other for buying from the wrong brand. It's tiring.

(It is linked to another thread that is pretty good, but much improved by blocking the graduate student who can't stop judging everyone else for just not trying hard enough.)

My point with that is that if we are going to make things better and equitable, it is going to have to come via cooperation and planning together. It will have to come by deciding to lift others up instead of always wanting to put others down.

I am glad to have this computer. Any complicated feelings I have about it will have have to be taken in stride.

Gratitude via the less expected paths

Maybe there is not really anything strange in how gratitude comes about anyway, but something unexpected hit me, and it was a good thing.

Last week I mentioned people reaching out to me. As fear of losing connection has been a concern, that was reassuring in itself. In addition, one of the contacts was about my technology issues, seeing if she would be able to help.

In that instance, my problem was specifically just old hardware, for which the solution is replacement. However, part of that was her asking how old the items were. My answers ended up impressing me.

I don't know how old the PC itself is. It was given to me by the parents of a friend after they replaced it. Old enough to be replaced, I guess. Having it was still a big help, and that was something I was grateful for then.

With the other items, I appear to still be on my original LCD monitor. I think I have had through three PCs, not counting this one. Well, the first of those would have had at least some of its time with my old CRT monitor, so two and a half PC lifespans, maybe, plus this one since February. Maybe I should keep better records, but that's at least nine years, probably more. I have to be impressed with that.

For the cable, I cannot swear to it, but I think that was the original cable that came with my first digital camera. The camera died in 2015, but I got it in 2007 or 2008, so that's pretty good for a little cable. Even now, I think its demise is due more to feline gnawing than age. I believe my first Logitech mouse still holds the record, but all in all I am very happy with the longevity of my devices.

I realize that some of my stretching things for that long is an aspect of my personality and economic position, but that wouldn't automatically make it work. I have had pretty good results, without knowing how much of it is luck and how much of it is good maintenance practices (which will clearly need to involve some cable wrapping now because of the cat). However it worked out, I am grateful for the ways in which technology makes my life easier and the ways in which it has lasted for me.

Even better, those particular problems are coming to an end, but I will save that for tomorrow.

Band Review: Tanya Tagaq

Tanya Tagaq has multiple creative outlets, but I was listening to her as a musician.

From Nunavut, Tagaq uses throat singing to create her music, but it is different from Inuit throat singing, which is performed in duets. Without a singing partner, Tagaq learned how to perform solo.

It is not easy listening.

That is partly a matter of habituation. Guttural, echoing, and not really melodic - at least in the expected way - there is no place of comfort to rest in the music. Given the subject matter, there shouldn't be.

Tagaq deals with environmental damage, colonialism, and rape on many different levels. It should not be comfortable.

When I reviewed Snotty Nose Rez Kids, the word "unsettling" came to mind and took on a new meaning. That applies here too.

It is unsettling, and it should be.

http://tanyatagaq.com/

https://www.facebook.com/tanyatagaq/ 

https://soundcloud.com/tanya-tagaq

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgOeD7Q8nrTI9FYGJowQCFg

https://twitter.com/tagaq

Music Review: Reclaimed

Reclaimed is not a band; it is a weekly CBC Radio series hosted by Jarrett Martineau and focusing on contemporary indigenous music. It was also recommended under 150 Acts of Reconciliation.

It looks like it just started this year, and that previous episodes are available for listening. I am thrilled that there is online access so that the audience does not have to be limited to Canadians.

Many of the featured artists are Canadian, as would be expected, but mainly I am pleased to see the variety, and to know that such a resource exists. After all, last year I finally covered every rapper in the Mic article. (Kind of, but more on that next week.) Some of the artists are familiar, but many are not.

I am glad to know that Reclaimed is around. I hope to be able to work through old shows, but even if I only go forward, this is a valuable service.

https://www.cbcmusic.ca/programs/reclaimed

https://twitter.com/CBCReclaimed

Prioritizing

A few people reached out to me after the "breakdown" - most of whom I didn't reply to, though I still want to.

Actually, one of my real concerns about this time of life is that I will permanently fall off of friends' radars. It would be fair, because I have not been good at keeping in touch. There have even been times where I tried and I sent messages out to people, and they were like "Long time no hear!", and then I didn't respond to that. So, if it happens, it was me, but I hope that won't be the case.

Anyway, I did respond to one friend, and she took me for a small hike in the general area of tomorrow's Turkey Trot, giving me a chance to get the lay of the land, and also a chance to unload.

I was able to talk and hike for all but the last upward stretch. I am not sure if that was because it was steeper or accumulated tiredness. Among all of the things that I wish I had more time for, I wish I had been walking more, but I am still doing pretty well and I'm just going to take it.

I had been thinking already that I should probably try and get two respite breaks per month so that I don't reach the breakdown phase. She thought I should go for one a week, so that I have something I am looking forward to every week.

I have toyed with that idea, because then maybe I could alternate having social times and alone times. I have also dismissed it as being too hard to work out, and then considered it as a good possible target because if weekly is my aim that should greatly decrease my possibility of going a whole month without respite again.

All of those viewpoints have passed through my mind after our walk. During the walk, we were focusing on her thinking weekly would be good, and me thinking it was impossible. My justification - which she questioned - was that this is temporary. I will not be caring for my mother forever. Her needs are acute. Mine are... I don't think "obtuse" is the right antonym for that; maybe they are just more slow.

I kept thinking about this later, probably because she had pushed back (though that was more on the relationship issue, which was also fair). I likened it to triage; it makes sense that my needs can wait. Then I remembered that sometimes the criteria for triage decisions would be not just the urgency, but whether any real benefit is possible. Then maybe she wouldn't come first. If she has a few years and I have many, and I need to care for myself now to be able to enjoy those years, then what?

Of course you can't always know. In my darkest moments I imagine all of this stress building into a cancer inside me that takes me out shortly after my duties are done. That is morbid, not really aligned with my medical history, and kind of insulting to people who get cancer, though that never occurred to me until after I read Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor.

Without knowing the future, I do know me. I know what I believe about life and afterlife and how I feel. I know that to feel good about my decisions, I have to take good care of my mother, and try and make her life as good as possible. I also know that she forgets things, and resets. I still believe more good times and better engagement matters. But if I can be healthier - physically or mentally - there is also a value to that.

Yesterday's post was largely about receiving clarity. Today's is more about getting more muddled. Perhaps I put these posts in the wrong order. It is ultimately more to think about.

I have accepted an evening engagement for this Saturday. Not long ago I decided that I wouldn't do that. I didn't think about it when I said "yes", but I don't regret it. I don't know that I will do it often, but if there is one thing you learn with dementia, it's living in the moment. I have learned a lot about that.

And there is still a lot I don't know.

But Saturday I will see friends. Tomorrow I am going to get fresh air, and accomplish something I have wanted to do for a while. Although there will be a lot of people around, it will still be kind of a getaway. And I will be getting up early!

There are totally a few things that could go wrong, but I am not focusing on that.

Introvert, and my love language is Chinese food

Okay, one of those things is a joke, but there is some pertinent information there too.

Actually my love language is physical touch. While it is not hard science, I find it a helpful paradigm. I find it more helpful than Myers-Briggs types or star signs, though I certainly know people who find those helpful.

(Actually, I'm not sure that anyone other than INFPs and maybe INFJs cares about Myers-Briggs results, and even the people with the best anecdotal backups for astrology can't seem to describe a Capricorn personality, so make of that what you will.)

When I say that I have gained insight over this last time period, most of that has been about what makes me tick, and what I need. A big part of that is that I am an introvert.

Remember, that primarily means that I recharge by having time alone. It's not that I don't enjoy people, or need social contact or hugs for physical touch, or that I don't get any value from time spent with other humans. Good conversation definitely feeds my soul. I still sometimes need to be alone.

I am not alone very much. As my mother reaches a place where she needs more active engagement, there is less alone time available. There are aspects of work to it where even an extrovert would get depleted eventually, but my introversion is a specific reason that I need to be able to get away sometimes. It makes sense, but I had never specifically identified it before.

One of the things that knowing this helps me understand is my complete failure at establishing a successful sleep pattern. I stay up late. I keep meaning to go to bed early so I can get up early and do things before my sisters leave for their jobs, but I keep staying up because after everyone else is in bed there is breathing room. That emotional space is mine. I still think early to bed, early to rise is a better policy, but I might have more luck trying to use my nights productively.

One of the ways I realized this is because of my growing cravings for Chinese food as I go between breaks. It didn't seem that unusual because I like Chinese food anyway; it's my favorite. However, historically I eat it alone.

For my younger sisters, Chinese food is Panda Express, which is to Chinese food pretty much as Taco Bell is to Mexican food. That's not to say that I won't eat it sometimes and even enjoy it, but ultimately our palates differ. Recently I had Chinese food with my mother and older sister. It's not that it was bad, but it didn't satisfy that need. That's when I realized that it was more about the solitude.

(I am still more likely than not to choose Chinese food, given the option.)

An important part of all of the realizations was the last respite time that was really successful, which I wrote about under the provident living blog:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2018/10/planning-for-pastimes.html

This was useful in a couple of ways. Coming exactly four weeks before the "breakdown", it gives me a pretty clear time indicator of when I really start losing function and hating everyone. I mean, I do feel myself getting more tired and discouraged and longing for death, but that only helps on a reactive level. Knowing the time frame can help me be proactive.

Also, it helped in that it was kind of perfect. I had Chinese food, at my favorite place for that. I walked outdoors and got fresh air. I explored a place I had been meaning to check out. I had a book and got to do some reading. I do think that the eye problems made everything worse. Reading is the one thing that I still reliably get to do, and it was harder. It was important that I was alone, but without doing it deliberately, I modeled my perfect respite. Having that example really paved the way for understanding it, besides being good on its own.

Because it worked. I felt recharged after, and happy again.

Imagine how effective it could be to not push that off to the last minute.

Breakdown

Yes, I'm still around.

I had a really bad week, though it was really more the week before last, when I was still keeping up with the blog (though they were more shallow, entertainment-oriented posts).

Regardless, things were hard, and blogging just couldn't be the priority. I did get some insights, though, and I will be writing about those.

I have been posting later and shorter anyway, and that is not a coincidence. There is more stress, and there are more demands on my time. I could manage time better, but it is not just a time management issue. There has been another reduction in attention span.

The most important thing to say may be that I cannot make any guarantees about the blog right now. I hope to keep it up, because it is something that I care about, and that I find satisfying, but it is also not top priority.

Prioritizing is a challenge. That will probably be more Wednesday's post.

For today (late enough to be slipping into tomorrow), there is a litany of brokenness; it is not just me.

My PC has been acting sluggish for a while. The monitor is starting to malfunction now too. Right now that means that control windows keep popping up. I can dismiss them, but they come back (the buttons are sticking), so I am shrinking windows and putting them in odd placements to make the popups less intrusive.

The bright side is that with having less time to be on the computer and the monitor issues, processing slowdowns seem to be happening less. They are at least less noticeable.

The webcam died too. I hardly ever use it, but I was in the middle of a teleconferencing study group, where I did need it. That was the least of my problems, because I had bought one really cheap cam years ago that I hated and never used, and that purchase finally paid off.

My regular camera still takes pictures, but I have not been able to upload them. I am pretty sure it is just the cable, which should be a cheap and easy replacement. I am still taking selfies, but I have to say that not posting them really dilutes the power of that whole process.

The other big issue was that my eyes were not working. I have been needing to fill my new prescription for some time. I am used to getting gradually more far-sighted, but my short-distance vision has now taken a nose dive. For reading I was alternating between doing it without glasses and with glasses but holding the book farther out, and other combinations of trying to get the best clarity, with a real need for bright light.

Being able to read is really important for me.

Fortunately, I was recently able to replace my glasses.

Unfortunately, the need to get that errand done, and within certain time constraints and needing to rely on other people, meant it killed the day that was going to be my first respite day in a month. 

That's where it got really bad.

More on that later.

Band Review: Leonard Sumner

The next three reviews were inspired by 150 Acts of Reconciliation, specifically step 44:

http://activehistory.ca/2017/08/150-acts-of-reconciliation-for-the-last-150-days-of-canadas-150/

Leonard Sumner is an Anishinaabe singer, songwriter, and MC from the Little Sasketchewan First Nation around central Manitoba.

Singer and songwriter get combined a lot, but it is less common to have them combined with MC. In the case of Sumner it makes sense. Sometimes he raps, but sometimes that sounds more like spoken word poetry. Sometimes he sounds more like a country musician, but really it is more roots music. All of that flows into and around each other on  Sumner's two albums: Rez Poetry from 2013 and Standing in the Light from 2018.

At first I was surprised by the mix, but it feels natural, and it also ends up meaning that what needs to be said can be said in the most appropriate manner for the message. You can sing about the content in "I Know You're Sorry" and some have, but the cadence and tempo - including the pauses - are perfect for what they are. It takes multiple listens to notice the skill that is present in the delivery, because at first you can only feel the impact. The contrast of it then leading into the gentle wisdom of "The Ceremony" is even more pronounced.

Later it is possible to step back and marvel at the versatility, but first you need to feel the emotion. That there are both makes it really understandable that Sumner was chosen for inclusion on the list.

Listening then becomes a good choice. If non-Native listeners can sit with the discomfort that comes with acknowledging the wrongs - the genocide - then even listening to music can become an act of reconciliation. Not the only act needed, of course, but perhaps a good starting place.

http://www.leonardsumner.com/

https://www.facebook.com/leonard.sumner

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ238KmdHQLSirj2gqc22UQ


https://twitter.com/LeonardSumner

Band Review: Jeremy Dutcher

Jeremy Dutcher is a singer from Toronto, Canada. I became aware of him through Digital Drum.

There are two things that are especially important about him, especially as it pertains to his album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa.

One is that Dutcher has Wolastoq roots that he incorporates into his music. Also, he does this as a musicologist and classically trained tenor.

I don't want to get away from the musical ability. Dutcher's voice soars beautifully. The opening track, "Mehcinut", reminds me of "Ave Maria" in how it combines drama with a sense of the sacred, a sense that is very appropriate here.

The album rearranges field recordings from the 1900s, interpreting them in a way that I think requires someone with both a intense caring for the language and people, but also a deep musical understanding.

On "Eqpahak" he speaks as well as sings, and he talks about bringing the music back and bringing the people back. The interviewer challenges that a little, though I don't think it is disrespectful. Dutcher's defense felt right to me. I feel it in two ways beyond the thought of ancestors coming back and listening and being happy to hear their songs revived, though I will not discount that at all. Not all listeners have to do that in the flash.

As well, music is extremely powerful in evoking feelings and sensations. That can operate on behalf of history and legacy.

Beyond that, I remember the ending of the Roots remake from 2016, where old pictures would come to life, and you would know and recognize individuals in them because you knew their story. Music can connect, and be a bridge.

I believe Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa can do that. If these songs are specific to Wolastoq, that does not inhibit them from having meaning, and inspiration, for others.



https://jeremydutcher.com/

https://www.facebook.com/jdutchermusic/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjZpuqAKFSQ-3ay8l0i6cVA

https://twitter.com/jdutchermusic

Band Review: LightningCloud

Last year one of my favorite reviews in November was RedCloud, but I saw at the time that he was doing more with LightingCloud, his project with Crystle Lightning and DJ Jonney Miles.

LightningCloud is pretty fun too.

Their self-titled debut album from 2012 does some interesting things, with references running from The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" to "Hernando's Hideaway" from The Pajama Game. There is an upbeat energy and it is easy to dance to, especially "Zoom".

That is fine, but 2015's Indigenous Angels took things to another level.

It's not that the dancing energy has left. "Ketchup Chips" is pretty clubby, and their team-up with Leonard Sumner, "Meet Me At the Pow Wow" is not only catchy, but kind of centers on boys meeting girls.

But Indigenous Angels also has "Walk Alone", dealing with homelessness and leading in with "I'm a Human Being" - something about the homeless that is not remembered enough. Overall it feels like there is a greater seriousness.

That makes a certain sense. Indigenous Angels was also the title of RedCloud's record breaking freestyle in 2014, naming missing and murdered indigenous women. There was a LightningCloud record being planned at that time, and it is not hard to see a connection and a direction between the event and the album.

If the newer project that I discovered last year debuted in 2012 and last released an album in 2015, that just shows how behind I am. However, it looks like RedCloud performed with Crystle Lightning just last month, and you never know what's coming next.

The great thing about music is that once it's out there, it's out there (except in some of the worst break-ups and copyright infringement pursuits). These two albums and various videos are available, though I only found two relevant links.

https://www.facebook.com/TeamLightningCloud/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiPNMRg0xKsa29kHdowdVyg

Band Review: Good Morning Hellen

Good Morning Hellen is the project of Samantha Hill, a singer/songwriter with roots in New York and Florida and is a member of the Mohawk Nation. I found her through a song she submitted through #INDIGENERDS4HOPE, retweeted by A Tribe Called Geek.

(It is not obvious from Hill's online information whether she identifies more as a geek or nerd.)

Good Morning Hellen sings sweetly about sad things. "Fallout" and "Broken Little Bird" stand out in conveying the pain of wanting to help and not being able to, and yet the strongest impression that remains is the sweetness. That is not just referring to her voice, but also to a sense of gentleness and resilience.

Vocally Hill reminds me somewhat of Rita Coolidge. Looking through musical influences, the strongest thread may be personal storytelling, with names like Jim Croce and John Denver appearing. It is country-adjacent enough that there could be good crossover potential, but not in a way that would turn off those strongly opposed to country.

I also enjoy her artwork.

You can support Good Morning Hellen at the Wix and Bandcamp sites below.

http://goodmorninghellen.wixsite.com/goodmorninghellen

https://www.facebook.com/GoodMorningHellenMusic/

https://goodmorninghellen.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/goodmorninghellen/featured

https://twitter.com/GMH_Music


ETA: I initially had her last name as Hall, not Hill, which has since been corrected.

Sympathy for Brooke Logan

Six years ago I expressed frustration with The Bold and the Beautiful:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-is-not-beautiful.html

Actually, I am watching it more now than I did then. That's mainly because it is an easy afternoon break, paired with The Talk. CBS really did me dirt by replacing The Doctors with The 700 Club. Too much television is not good, but I need some breaks where I don't have to lead the engagement.

Let me say that the embarrassment that I have about the show is not that I am watching a soap opera, but that it has the same viewing problems that bothered me six years ago and I am still watching it. That they keep making the least interesting choices, repeat the same scenes over and over (sometimes via flashbacks, sometimes through characters rehashing the same conversation) and then dropping everything abruptly in favor of a new pairing, decreasing the motivation for emotional investment. (Although, if this is to be my easy viewing, maybe it's better to not be invested.)

Anyway, currently Brooke and Ridge are having conflict in their marriage. It started with their adult daughters competing over a man, then was exacerbated at work when Ridge pulled funding from her daughter Hope's line to fund his daughter's, and now is focusing on Bill, Brooke's previous husband, whom Ridge hates. In addition to recently having influenced a judge against Bill in his custody case and pushing Bill off of a second-story balcony, Ridge is constantly bad-mouthing Bill, including a recent joke that they should see if the judge can help Thorne and Katie adopt Will (Bill's son) and change his name.

One of my main complaints with the show is that there are many things that should be brought up that aren't. Ridge keeps returning to Bill pursuing his son's pregnant wife (Ridge's daughter) and that was true and gross, but no one is mentioning how Ridge stole Bill's niece from Brooke's son, even though Ridge's son was interested, and then pretended to be the father of his grandson, not letting his son even know he was a father. True, that story line was a mess in general, so the writers might want to forget, but it's still hypocritical.

(It's a super-incestuous show, by the way. Not genetically, perhaps, but in every other way.)

In this case, the repeated argument is that Ridge hates Bill and can't help it, but it bothers Brooke.

What bothers me are all of the things that Brooke should say but does not.

"I told Bill that I'm your wife and I chose you. He can't come between us, but you can."

"I left Bill because of his behavior. I can't stand seeing that anger and manipulation from you."

Brooke has tried pointing out that Ridge does not have the moral high ground, but he is not hearing it. She could express herself more strongly, I suppose, but Ridge is really good at not hearing it. Huge ego.

On one level, you would not really expect Brooke to be good at taking a stand with Ridge. She has always tended to defer to men in general (some abandonment issues from her father), and Ridge especially has been her destiny (in her mind) so it would be hard for her to assert herself against him.

Historically that has not been good for her. Ridge has abandoned her again and again, for various reasons, which I guess makes him the most likely match for her unresolved daddy issues and the least likely person to help in her healing.

It is still frustrating to see her try and express her feelings and to see him keep knocking them aside:

"I made that decision and it's done."
"I already apologized for that."

He does this when he can't even refrain from criticizing Bill after seeing that it upsets Brooke every time. His emotions can't be helped. Her feelings should change.

I was thinking that this relationship diminishes her. That's kind of par for the course on this show, but beyond that, I was thinking today that Brooke does not have the language to explain herself to Ridge, and that a lot of women don't. We need to learn how to talk about things to deal with them. That can be difficult when everyone is cooperating, but when only one side really needs the change, that allows the other side to make it much harder.

This ultimately is what television is like when you view everything through a feminist lens.

No regrets.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was a stupid movie

Yes, I do have political thoughts, but they are too roiled up right now, and they may change as results come in. Instead, I would like to complain about a movie.

Some time ago I thought of various movies that might work for Halloween for me. They were movies that had Halloween themes, but were not truly horror movies because I don't really care for that genre. Over the past few years I have watched Bell, Book, and Candle; I Married a Witch; The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and this year I have pretty much finished up with The Others and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. Gaslight  was there, but is not really that spooky. What We Do in the Shadows could be spooky and will be watched soon, but it was never on that list. It got tagged onto the end of the Disney list after I saw Thor: Ragnarok and got a burning desire to see more work from Taika Waititi. (I know I am not the only one to have that reaction.)

Also, I can't find The Time of Their Lives. That's an Abbott and Costello film that came up in a discussion about whether or not Gordon Lightfoot's "Paperback Novel" is meant to be taken literally. (It relates to the "ghost in a wishing well" line, obviously.) I can't find it anywhere, but I do have a request in at the library for a collection that contains Abbott and Costello meeting Frankenstein, the killer, and the invisible man.

What is most important to point out with all of these movies is that they have been largely disappointing. A lot of the Disney ones were too, actually, so the problem could be me, though I have been pretty happy with the music documentaries.

Regardless, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir annoyed me in very specific ways which I am now going to complain about, INCLUDING SPOILERS!

If you haven't seen the movie, it starts with a young widow explaining to her husband's mother and sister that she is moving out, taking her daughter (Anna) and maid (Martha) with her. The mother is sad and the sister is resentful, but Lucy (played by Gene Tierney) is steadfast. She will use her inherited shares in a gold mine to live cheaply at the coast.

The cheapest house is haunted, which initially startles and then intrigues her. She refuses to be scared away by the ghost, sea captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). He is haunting the house because he died unexpectedly (an accident that was interpreted as suicide) and did not leave a will specifying that he wanted the house to become a home for old seamen. They agree to coexist.

One of the minor annoyances here is that she orders him to not manifest to Anna so as not to scare her, and he promises, but later Anna has memories of him. She wasn't scared, so it could be much worse, but realistically it means he broke that promise early.

The gold mine gives out, which the in-laws think will bring Lucy back, but Daniel dictates his life story to her and guides her toward a publisher who will accept it. That would not be enough if a children's author, Miles Fairley (George Sanders) had not seen Lucy and liked her looks, giving her his appointment.

The book is sold, Lucy has an income and a new suitor, and - while she is attached to the captain - she is drawn to the realness of Miles. Only, he's not actually that real, because the cad has a wife and two kids. (Which she should have guessed the minute she saw that it was George Sanders.)

However, before Lucy discovers his caddishness, she and Daniel have a disagreement about him. While Lucy is sleeping Daniel tells her that she has chosen life - the only choice she could make - and that he was just a dream, and that is as it should be. She should be around people. Then he goes off, fading from Lucy's mind.

So, once Lucy is disillusioned with Miles she stays in the house by the sea, walking on the shore every day, until she gets old and dies and Daniel comes for her. Anna has grown up and gotten married and had at least one child, so it is just Martha and Lucy growing older in solitude. It has its compensations, Lucy tells Anna. Then she dies. That is not choosing life and people!

The worst part is that in the early parts of the movie Lucy talks about wanting to be stubborn and brave and to accomplish something. She takes no credit for Anna, and she married young on romantic notions but not really in love. To start out by standing up to her overbearing in-laws, not be dissuaded by a reluctant real estate agent, and to refuse to be scared by a ghost seems promising, but it ends with a quiet life where her one constant is Martha, to whom she acts peevishly right before her death.

No thanks.

That plot only serves male ego.

This is how it should have gone. In the process of taking Daniel's dictation, Lucy should have suggested better forms of expression, showing a knack for language. They only showed her objecting to an impolite expression once. She could have asked more about distant lands. There could have been fun interplay with the irascible ghost conceding sometimes that her ways of saying some things was better, and it could show the development of unsuspected talents.

Yes, it still makes sense that she would be drawn to a living man, and that the captain would see that it was better that way. It even works for Miles to be a cad, but let that be the beginning of her life, not the end of it. She comes home from London, has a good cry, and gets an idea for a new book. She feels an inexplicable urge to create a home for retired seamen. Maybe Martha could help, and have some romance of her own with a not quite so old seaman. Martha ends up running the home - for which she has the skills and energy - and Lucy begins to travel more, seeing more of the world and writing more about it. She begins to have the most interesting life, with at least opportunities for romance, even if none of them quite measure up to the ideal she wrote in her debut novel.

Then it would be okay for her to visit Martha when old, to take a nap upstairs, and to quietly slip away and be greeted by the captain. That would have had a point.

So at this point I guess my favorite kind of horror but not really movies are still Gotham and The Birds.