Gratitude for Cockroaches

Gratitude we're told is something we should practice in our lives.  It's healthy.  It changes our brains, our quality of sleep, even our immune systems.  And gratitude not only for the good things that come our way, but for the bad things, too.  Like cockroaches.  What?

I hate washing dishes.  Whenever I'm staring down a sinkful of dirty pans, a voice in my head says I'm better than this.  I was not born to wash dishes.  I was meant to have staff.  Or at least an electric dishwasher.  My true destiny was to be wealthy and successful, but my life took a wrong turn somewhere.

Along with this innate resistance, throw in depression, laziness, and procrastination, and you've got yourself an open invitation for a roach infestation.

Which is exactly what happened.

Not wanting to use poisons, I decided to starve 'em out.  That meant no dirty dishes left lying around.  Not even for a few minutes.  No more sneaking off to bed with a promise that I'd wash them in the morning.  There was no such thing as later.

I wasn't sure if I could do it, such is my hatred of dishwashing.  But I did it.

And I discovered that keeping the sink clean at all times was actually less stressful.  Instead of facing an entire sinkful to wash, it was only two or three things at a time.  No longer did I dread facing a pile of gross, crusty plates, pots, and gadgets in my sink. 

The roaches went away.  I'm grateful that they left, but I'm also grateful that they came.

Leila Janah

Woke up today.  Shook off the cobwebs.  Shuffled to the computer.  Read the news.

Saw a headline about a 37-year old entrepreneur who died.  Something urged me to click on it.

It ruined my day, but in a profound way.

Leila Janah was a beautiful woman, inside and out.  She dedicated her short time on Earth to lifting up the poor, disadvantaged, forgotten.  She started nonprofit companies to train and employ some of the most impoverished people in Africa in AI.

Leila was in the midst of planning her wedding when something didn't feel right.  The first doctor said nothing to worry about.  But she sensed otherwise.  She said it felt "ominous."  So she went for a second opinion.  She was right.  It was rare and awful.

Leila was public about her ordeal.  Always positive, optimistic, full of gratitude.  When she was given access to a new drug to treat her condition, she was over the moon.  She never lost hope.

Leila died on January 24.

I never heard of Leila until today.  Until her obituary randomly popped up in my newsfeed.

I never knew her.  But I will never forget her.

Here is her last Facebook post.

A quick update! It has been a trying few months in and out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with different types of chemo and a chest drain (!). But I have never felt so loved, fortunate, or cherished. My beloved @tassilo_f and our team of doctors, nurses, family and friends have prescribed, cooked, cuddled, FaceTimed, sung, visited, and scrabbled me into as happy a state as possible given the circumstances! I celebrated 37 last month with a “00” on the cake, a symbol of the fresh take on the world this cancer has given me. One thing I realized is how philosophically important my work has been in my life, but how obsessed I was with controlling every detail. In my recovery, I’ve had to change my relationship to work and accept not being able to step into everything. As a founder it is a tremendous relief to have the best leaders and coworkers I could ask for— soon we will share some exciting news on the Samasource front, and the LXMI team is about to launch a new product. It brings me such joy to see these teams flourish, to see our vision take root and flower. Epithelioid sarcoma is a rare, strange beast. As it moves through my body I’m trying to understand what it could possibly teach me. My biggest lesson is awe: I’m awe-struck by the complexity of human biology, and equally by the almost mystical power of human connection and love flowing my way. Thank you all for your support and care ❤️🙏🏽 #sarcoma #epithelioidsarcoma #cancer#cancerfighter #msk #mskcc

  

Timeless Truths

There are timeless truths which transcend culture, religion, language, distance, and are immune to centuries of change.  I recently discovered one while reading Essays in Idleness by Kenko, a 13th century Japanese Buddhist monk. 

One of my biggest and most persistent stressors is the feeling that I'm overwhelmed with projects and responsibilities and will never catch up.  As soon as I cross one thing off my to-do list, two more things appear.  Many a night I lie awake worrying about all the tasks waiting for me to complete.  And when I fantasize about traveling to somewhere on my bucket list, the dream is quickly dismissed.  I can't go now, there's too much to do. 

Weren't answering machines and fax machines and computers and laptops and cell phones supposed to make our lives easier?  Wasn't that the promise when they were selling us all that crap?  They lied.  Because I'm way busier with much less leisure time than before. 

So maybe my plight is the fault of the time we live in.  Maybe it's a 21st century, first-world problem.  

Nope.  Apparently there is nothing new about this phenomenon, because Kenko knew all about it.  The Buddhist monk.  In Japan.  In the 13th century.  

"A man who has determined to take the Great Step should leave unresolved all plans for disposing of urgent or worrisome business.  Some men think, 'I'll wait a bit longer, until I take care of this matter,' or 'I might as well dispose of that business first,' or "I'll wait till that matter is cleared up.  I mustn't be hasty.'  But if you think in such terms, the day for taking the Great Step will never come, for you will keep discovering more and more unavoidable problems, and there will never be a time when you run out of unfinished business."

Everything has changed, and nothing has changed.

Do typos matter anymore?

It's 2020, and my question today is:  does anyone care about typos?

Typographical errors used to be a Big Deal.  Absolute no-nos.  If an official document was sent out with a typo...gasp!  Someone's job could be on the line.  Even slip-ups in punctuation were taken seriously.  Companies employed editors and proofreaders whose full-time job was to ensure there were no mistakes in printed matter.  It seems they are now relics of a bygone era.

With the advent of speed texting, lazy acronyms (icymi), deliberately misspelled words (Lyft), flagrantly incorrect parts of speech (woke), and the shortcomings of spellcheck programs, typos are no longer seen as a big deal.  They are the collateral damage of working on the fly, cranking out missives asap off mobile devices, in a country where we spend trillions on defense while teaching our kids in trailers.  But I digress...

A company I freelance for uses collaborative writing, where staffers all over the globe with the right link can dive into a document on a shared drive and edit away.  There's no one at the end of the process to ensure that the final hack job is typo-free.  And out it goes, into wide circulation.

It doesn't seem to faze the mostly under-40 management.  Shoulder shrug, oops, oh well.  Sometimes even a glare, as if I'm being a little anal retentive.  SMH.

I'm baaack

After a 3-year break, I've decided to write again on this blog.

Where those 3 years went is a mystery.  What I accomplished or learned, if anything, is not evident.

All I know is, I find myself with more to say now.  More questions.  More observations.  More complaints.  More gratitude.  More longing to say what's on my mind.

I'm 3 years older now, and there are more changes.  More transitions.  More adjustments, as I feel myself being ever-so-gradually nudged to the sideline of mainstream.

I've been feeling constipated from all of it, so I resurrected this digital journal as a form of expression.  Even if it's shared with no one, the writing offers a relief, a release, of persistent thoughts.

Only to make room for more.

Happy New Year?

I don't know about you, but I was not in a celebratory mood this New Year's.  Not just because of all the downers of 2016, which seemed to pile on in the fourth quarter so fast we could hardly catch our breath.   It's that most of those downers are either forever, or not going away anytime soon, or -- looking ahead -- just going to get worse.  My downer short list:  Bernie Sanders' loss, Trump's win, Prince, Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Syria, terrorism, gun violence, more Israeli land grabs from Palestine, and Flint still doesn't have safe water to drink.  Call me a pessimist, but 2017 isn't looking much better.

Philadelphia Freedom

Phila is all the things I love about DC, without all the things I don't. It's hipper & cooler without trying too hard. It's more age diverse. It's friendlier - no airs, no posers. Concertgoers are more into the music, and the performers respond accordingly. There are fewer sirens and they're not as loud. And it hasn't (yet) been ruined by block-swallowing mixed-use development.

A violinmaker on Spruce St.

I just like the name, "The Nash"

My "veggie" cheesesteak from Pat's

John tucking into a real cheesesteak

World-famous Geno's cheesesteak in South Phila

On the Phila Musicians' Walk of Fame

Remember the MFSB hit, TSOP?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYhgMI9Zx-g

The Three Notes, house band at Bob & Barbara's Lounge, which boasts a Hammond B3

Eblen Macari Trio: Mexican-Arabic Fusion

The event notice read: "the ensemble uses myriad instruments to uncover the baroque and Levantine influences in Mexican music."

I'd never heard of a connection between Arabic and Mexican music, but Eblen informed me that there's a large population of Lebanese living in Mexico, and their musical traditions have influenced Mexican music.

Comprised of guitarist and composer Eblen Macari, harpsichordist Olga Martínez, and percussionist Kabalan Macari, the trio gave a concert titled De Beirut a Cosamaloapan at the Mexican Cultural Institute.  The program was described as "a meeting of contemporary music and son jarocho style with Arabic roots and Spanish baroque influence."  They played lush, lively Mexican-Baroque-Middle Eastern fusion in the form of original compositions and traditional songs using guitars (including a jarana), harpsichord, and ethnic percussion instruments (including the darbuka).

The group is based in Mexico and rarely performs in the U.S.  And their YouTube videos are not exemplary of the beautiful sounds from tonight's performance. Some things are meant to be savored only in the moment.

Caught Off Guard by a MEAM

Tonight, while listening to an internet radio station which plays obscure gems from the '60s and early '70s, I heard the opening notes of a song and froze.  It was vaguely familiar.  I listened intently as it progressed through the first verse.  Something started to happen in my brain.  The song was buried deep in my memory, from long ago, and my brain was attempting to reconstruct it as it went on.  When it climaxed at the chorus, I finally recognized it and my eyes welled with tears.  I was having what's called a MEAM - a Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memory.

The song was "I Ain't Got Time Anymore" by The Glass Bottle ((written by the late great Mike Leander and Eddie Seago and sung by Gary Criss), a beautiful but painfully sad song about the loss of a love.  I was just a kid when I first heard it on the radio in 1970.

Wanting to know more about this phenomenon, I found an article in Psychology Today called, "Why Do the Songs from Your Past Evoke Such Vivid Memories?" by Christopher Bergland, which explains the neuroscience of vivid musical memories.  Here are the main points:

Familiar songs light up areas in green 


 

• In a 2011 study, Finnish researchers discovered that listening to music activates wide networks in the brain, including areas responsible for motor actions, emotions, and creativity.
• In a 2009 study, researchers from UC Davis mapped the brain while people listened to music and found specific brain regions linked to autobiographical memories and emotions are activated by familiar music.
  
• Why do autobiographical memories linked to music remain so rich? If you haven't heard a song in years, the neural tapestry of that song stays purer, and the song will evoke stronger memories of a time and place from your past. The memories linked to overplayed songs can become diluted because the neural network is constantly being updated.

Preserving America's Audio-Visual Heritage

Library of Congress National A/V Conservation Center, Culpeper, VA

Today, I had the privilege of touring the Library of Congress's National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in scenic Culpeper, Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

It's the world's largest a/v collection -- a 45-acre campus housing over 1.1 million visual materials and 3.5 million audio recordings on over 90 miles of underground shelving in climate-controlled vaults (and a nuclear bomb-proof underground bunker).

underground storage vault

The collection includes motion pictures, television programs, radio broadcasts, and sound recordings (including MUSIC!!).

The show Elvis Presley got his start on

Fewer than 20% of American silent films still survive in their complete form.  And half of American films produced before 1950 no longer exist, while   post-1950 films are threatened by fading and other forms of deterioration.

Thanks to federal funding, this facility has state-of-the-art capabilities to preserve a/v media in every format dating back 100 years, and to store them in a petabyte-level digital storage archive. 

Preservation work

Mike Mashon, Head of Moving Images

78-rpm recording on metal, 1929

Paper print of D.W. Griffith's 1909 film, "The Lonely Villa"

Gene DeAnna, Head of Recorded Sound

Assortment of legacy microphones

 

Edison cylinder, 1912

Center Chief Greg Lukow in the 206-seat theater

Related links:
National Film Preservation Foundation
National Film Registry
National Recording Preservation Foundation
National Recording Registry

Code Pink 4 Peace

The bodacious DC chapter of Code Pink had a housewarming party today to celebrate their new digs in Northeast.  Present were lots of good food & drink, beautiful weather, and a great group of activists of all ages, flavors, and issues. 

Alicongaras

 The Colombian artist Marta Gutierrez is an architect by training who decided to follow her dream of becoming an artist.  Her latest exhibit, Critters + Doodles (Alicongaras y Mamarrachos), showcases her talent in the form of whimsical characters, paintings and drawings.  Here's a sample from the show, which was hosted by the Colombian Embassy.

on display at the Colombian Ambassador's residence

Happy Birthday, Richie Furay

David and Nancy Stone know how to throw a party.  And Richie Furay knows how to say thank-you.

The country-rock pioneer showed his appreciation to the promoters and the sell-out crowd who came to celebrate his 70th birthday with a heartfelt and high-energy performance tonight at the South Orange (NJ) Performing Arts Center.  And, like any great birthday party, there were plenty of surprises.

Richie with David & Ted Spero

The evening began with an intimate dinner for Richie & his band with family and friends.
 
Dinner was followed by a meet & greet reception with close to 100 fans -- many of whom have been following Richie's career since his early days with Buffalo Springfield, then Poco, Souther-Hillman-Furay, the Richie Furay Band and beyond.  As always, Richie was gracious with his time -- chatting, signing autographs, posing for photos.

The Richie Furay Band with Rusty Young

Then the concert got underway, along with the first special guest of the evening: Rusty Young, co-founder of Poco and master of the pedal-steel guitar.  Rusty engaged the audience with stories and songs and accompanied Richie on several tunes, including the 1973 Poco epic, Crazy Eyes.


The second surprise guest was original Poco drummer and vocalist George Grantham, who continued to play on and off with Poco until 2002, when he suffered a stroke.  George got a standing ovation as he walked onstage with the help of a cane and sang with Richie.

Richie Furay and George Grantham

Next up, a video filled with birthday messages from a who's-who of rock musicians including Graham Nash, Jim Messina, Kenny Loggins, Dan Dugmore, Waddy ("You don't look a day over 69") Wachtel, Chris Hillman, Paul Cotton, and many others.  At the conclusion, a birthday cake was trotted out, and it was the crowd's turn to sing to Richie.

Mark Volman greets Richie onstage

Then, one last video -- a birthday message from Mark Volman (founding member of The Turtles, former member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, and half of Flo & Eddie), who said he hoped to see Richie "real soon."  And right on cue, Volman walked onstage.  A perfectly choreographed surprise.

Here are a few YouTube videos courtesy of Buffalo Springgal (and check out 4 great Poco tracks in the jukebox):


This was my third trek to NJ to see Richie and the Stones, and it was worth every mile to be a part of their warm community of fans and friends for one memorable night of music and celebration.

Al Kooper at B.B. King's

Al, who rarely performs these days, did a two-night stand at B.B. King's in NYC to celebrate his 70th birthday.  He was supported by guitarist Jimmy Vivino and a backing band of profs from Berklee College of Music. He treated us to a mix of songs from his time with the Blues Project, Mike Bloomfield, Dylan, and the Stones. One of the best-dressed guys in the business, Al didn't disappoint with a sharp black glitter jacket and an exquisite paisley coat that gave me wonderful flashbacks.

Photos from tonight's show: