Category: Writing

  • No News Day: Farmer’s Markets

    I’m not anxious about the virus. Not sure if that is good or a bad thing.

    I also feel like I have overdosed on the Democratic party and the nomination process. I am sure part of that has to do with my guy underperforming, but hey… it’s nice to have a break from the Bloomberg ads.

    So, where does that leave me?

    Actually, it would be nice to take a break from the news and thinking about how it affects everything.

    What that leaves me with is wondering why I haven’t been able to get into farmer’s markets?

    (Yes, it will be that kind of blog today.)

    I used to work near the Union Square Farmer’s Market in New York, and they gets set up three times a week in the spring and summer… and when I found myself in it, it was mainly because I had to walk through it to get to the other side. Lot’s of slow-moving people picking over apples and lavender candles.

    When we were in California, and we lived sort of in the country, there were farmer’s markets everywhere, but only on Saturdays… which I found odd. Well, there was one on Sundays, but it was the ugly stepchild of markets; picked over, and lots of old hippies that seemed more interested in telling me that I really don’t “get” what they are trying to sell me.

    Either way, I kept expecting that I will go to one, and be inspired to cook something, or just get excited about farm to table sustainable food. And I know it’s important that we all do those things, and compost too, but I feel the steely eye of the farmer watching me, hoping that I make eye contact so they can tell me a story about their farm.

    That’s it… farmer’s markets.

    Thank you…

  • Thanks, Alex

    I think I need to take a break from the news. I could talk about South Carolina, or that Harvey Weinstein was just found guilty on two counts.

    But what I really want to talk about is listening to Parliament.

    What has brought this about recently is that we showed the kid “Guardians of the Galaxy, and Vol. 2” this weekend, and she completely latched on to the movies, the characters, and the music. (She’s been running around the playground telling the other kids that she’s Gamora.) We added both soundtracks to a playlist for her, which means we have been listening to it pretty much non-stop. That’s not a complaint.

    Vol. 2’s soundtrack has Parliament’s “Flash Light” on it, and this is how we get all of this tied together.

    I have some time for myself this day to work in the home office, and this would make a great time to start listening to Parliament again.

    I know the first time I heard/saw them, and that was on Saturday Night Live in 1986. (I know this only because I can look it up, not that the date was seared into my brain.) Watching George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic did leave me a little confused, as I knew it was a band, but the music and attitude on display was not like anything I had seen before.

    Jump ahead five years, and being in 9th grade I make that friend who loves Parliament, and my music horizons are broadened in a most needed way. The Mothership Connection, and Bootsy Collins, and the funk, and for a little white kid growing up in the suburbs, it was like getting invited to the party with the cool kids.

    I mean, I want funk uncut.

  • At MOMA

    Yesterday, I took the kid to MOMA. I thought that she was at the age that we could go to a museum and she would be able to start recognizing some paintings that she had seen before in the books we have at home. I was correct, and she remembered “Starry Night,” and “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” And when I say “recognizing,” what I mean is that she would say, “I know that picture.” I think that’s a good start when it comes to art appreciation.

    Out of everything we looked at, the kid really latched on to Gretchen Bender’s “Dumping Core.” I don’t want try to explain it here, as the link does a better job. When we went into the little theatre space that 13 tv screens were in, I thought the exhibit would be a stimulation overload for the kid. I was surprised at how serious she took it. When we left, I asked what she liked about it, and she told me that she liked how the music and pictures worked together.

    What caught me was the Frank O’Hara exhibit. They had some of his original manuscripts, and drawings. I’m not the biggest fan of poetry, but something about his work, and how it was portrayed. It stuck with me; his work and what he was able to accomplish in his notebooks. It left me inspired, and wondering if there still aren’t new things I can learn and try.

  • Report on the Politicians, and the Reporters Who Follow the Campaigns

    I follow the politics of the country as if it were a form a reality television; It tries to imply that its real, but it’s all fake. And that fake show is reported as reality. Not that I blame the press for it, but I also feel that no one really has been honest about it for a while. Like, even the people on “The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth,” seem more interested in looking cool, or that they know how phony it all is, but they are right in the middle of it. I don’t think anyone has been honest about the whole fake business that politic and the reporting of politics has become sine Hunter Thompson in “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail “72.”

    I was trying to describe this to my wife the other night as the New Hampshire results were coming in on cable television. And then we switched over to watch “The Circus,” and that’s when the idea hit me; I would like to follow all the campaigns and the reporters, and share with everyone all the crazy shit that happens in the stage craft of campaigning. I’m not a reporter, so I have no idea what the ethics of that job is in those situations.  I would be an outsider peeking in.

    I wonder if I could do this, and get someone else to pick up the tab?

  • Following the Sun

    On days that I get down on myself, I remember a tory a theatre professor of mine told.

    It went along the lines of this…

    Follow your dreams no matter what. That doesn’t mean your dreams will come true, but if you are open to all the places, experiences and people that you meet along the way, your life won’t be dull, and you’ll be in a much happier place.

    I might be paraphrasing a little.

    Mainly, I have followed that advice. Some days more than others, but lately I started to think that it was just stuff you would tell a class full of people that were about the graduate. It’s a positive statement, but it also gave the professor an out; most of you aren’t going to make it, but you’ll have fun.

    And then I started getting older and seeing how other people also got older.

    It’s the dream denied that is dangerous. It’s the people who told themselves that they couldn’t do what they wanted, but never gave up wanting it, that I am seeing more and more now. Yes, I saw a ton of bitter actors in New York, but in a sense, they hadn’t given up on themselves. They were just made at everyone else succeeding.

    I now see people made at themselves. Disappointed in their choices in not trusting themselves and believing in themselves.

    This observation of middle-aged people has scared me a little. I don’t think I have become that.

    I still try, seeing where it goes.