tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1607316294599505312024-03-18T12:43:14.985-07:00Confessions of a Traveling Music TeacherReflections teaching Orff workshops around the world.Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.comBlogger4084125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-69302537306458896072024-03-18T12:38:00.000-07:002024-03-18T12:42:43.278-07:00Pay Attention<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">A</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">friend recently took me to the Museum of Modern Art and invited me to try a new approach to viewing paintings. The idea was simple, but turned out to be profound. As the best simple ideas often are. The whole thing was based on two words and one simple act that human beings have rarely down throughout the ages, but now is virtually an extinct species in our biosphere of constant distraction: “Pay attention.”<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">The instructions were to stand in front of a painting for ten minutes and discover what you notice. Ten minutes of undivided attention. No peeking at your phone or other paintings or other people. Just you and the painting alone together in your ten-minute universe. Don’t read the little museum blurb until the end. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">My friend chose the painting. A figurative work by Elmer Bischoff titled <u>Orange Sweater, </u>with its subject reading a book in the library. (Again, I didn’t know this until the end.) So I set to work noticing what I could. I divided the painting into 4 vertical quadrants and tried to identify objects in each quadrant— some distant mountains, the green leaves of a plant, a person, a desk, a book, two other background people, the walls, the windows and so on. Then I noticed the blend of earthy colors, lots of greys and browns, the curious splotch of red in the subject’s hair and then the textures of the brush strokes. I found myself wondering why the artist brushed vertically here and horizontally there and how he chose the colors and how we decided when each area of the painting felt finished. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">After a while, I stepped back one step at a time until I was some twenty feet back and noticed that the desk was more of a wrap-around counter. The painting had a different feeling looking at it all at once from a distance. Then I got close again and put on my glasses and noticed yet more details— like a series of thin x’s that could have been made with a razor blade. Was this the canvas cracking or an intentional choice? <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong></strong></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2u9Hg2laReRJFNjU_9Xmm8IH262-vYXtAhm6FHIowLK1b_r7IGVbxs2N9uet06lcHzwLJHvgeISVPIEHunOsqtP5g7iZ0h3rgaM7rWevHG8X0uL9YyP1Ed2e7jfFe81UFutR_kzUAIcVfE-Cula4UYQJSMs8NPeFRxzPyl2JW11v1alew1P6Ev6c_EvbN/s200/download-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="172" data-original-width="200" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2u9Hg2laReRJFNjU_9Xmm8IH262-vYXtAhm6FHIowLK1b_r7IGVbxs2N9uet06lcHzwLJHvgeISVPIEHunOsqtP5g7iZ0h3rgaM7rWevHG8X0uL9YyP1Ed2e7jfFe81UFutR_kzUAIcVfE-Cula4UYQJSMs8NPeFRxzPyl2JW11v1alew1P6Ev6c_EvbN/w339-h262/download-1.jpg" width="339" /></a></strong></div><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></strong><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">My friend announced the ten minutes were up and it didn’t feel too soon, but I could have spent another five minutes without feeling restless. He then took me to another part of the museum with more abstract works and set me in front of a large canvas that mostly was a wash of again, greys, blues, browns and other earthy tones, but this time without a single representational figure or recognizable object. The painting divided itself into four vertical quadrants set apart from three thin streaks of white going from top to bottom. This painting was to be more of a challenge.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">But I repeated my strategies of taking it one quadrant at a time, viewing it from different distances and different angles. I observed it with one eye shut and then the other and then squinting. After staring intensely for a while, I sometimes got the impression that the colors were swirling a bit, not unlike fog. Sometimes there seemed to be a little pulsing or vibrating. I hung in there, but I confess it was not connecting either to my mind or heart or sensual pleasure. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">Afterwards, I found out that the painting, titled <u>Scarface</u> and painted by David Diao, was an attempt to go further than the Abstract Expressionist movement and painted using sponges and squeegees. The three vertical lines were actual the wood behind the canvas used to stretch is showing through in the front. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong></strong></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOzqq_Z-C_SqZiv1u83xDKwBZfeuyy_b-JuR7rKqBMRxYiVqhYA2eOn9cYZFa63I9zYl_O9Agq28xhIq9CzzPfFdnmkmU9QzYrfTuTOYZ7_k2nKFo7QPwcHRF-5l61wtJk9JAK1n__1DjlE8MpKxQpQTBVPkJ65JC1_N_d6fPP0istSmSTWnXm8KLTL8ZX/s204/download.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="204" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOzqq_Z-C_SqZiv1u83xDKwBZfeuyy_b-JuR7rKqBMRxYiVqhYA2eOn9cYZFa63I9zYl_O9Agq28xhIq9CzzPfFdnmkmU9QzYrfTuTOYZ7_k2nKFo7QPwcHRF-5l61wtJk9JAK1n__1DjlE8MpKxQpQTBVPkJ65JC1_N_d6fPP0istSmSTWnXm8KLTL8ZX/w366-h242/download.jpg" width="366" /></a></strong></div><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></strong><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">My friend then showed me the two paintings he had looked at and we sat and shared our experiences. Though neither painting I looked at genuinely moved me or enticed me to bid for them at an auction, the simple experience of spending ten minutes with each was a radical awakening to the fact that I <i>never</i> do this in museums. Nor do most people. We walk through noticing this one or that one and maybe occasionally linger a bit longer at some. But mostly a trip to the museum is like passing a roomful of people at a party and greeting them with a short hello or at most, a few minutes of small talk, without ever sitting down to have a genuine in-depth conversation. Very similar to the way we skirt by all the background music in our life without really listening.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">So my takeaway was to remind myself to do this more often. To sit in the park and look at a tree for ten minutes. To listen to a piece of music with no distractions, like I used to when I was younger, lying down between two speakers. To pick three paintings next time I go to a museum and do my own five or ten minute immersion in them. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-weight: normal;">To simply pay attention. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-75996037783916109842024-03-17T06:54:00.000-07:002024-03-17T06:54:22.718-07:00Cellular Memory<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">It is now common knowledge</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></strong><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">that all traumatic experience is lodged in the cellular memory. Even perhaps the unresolved traumas of our ancestors passed down through our DNA. This means that we’re vulnerable to a present experience in the here and now triggering that memory and flooding us with those same feelings from long ago. The most obvious example is a way a car backfiring can unleash a PTSD veteran’s memory of gunshots. From this extreme all the way down to a stern rebuke in a classroom taking us back to a moment when a mean teacher shamed us in front of the class. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">But it also works the other way. The way the smell of a freshly-baked pie brings us back to the warmth and comfort of Grandma’s kitchen. Or a song on the radio evokes our first kiss. The mere feel of an old blanket brings us the same feeling of security we felt as a 5-year old. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">So it was a great pleasure when an SF School alum I taught for 11 years came to my Jazz Workshop yesterday, now as an adult Special Education teacher. The smile on his face as he reunited with the Orff instruments he used to play all those years, played familiar clapping plays with the fellow participants, sang the songs he used to sing with his same old teacher leading the class, was a grand pleasure for me to witness. And for him to experience as all the happy memories flooded in. He spontaneously testified before the class that he was a kid (and is an adult) “on the spectrum” and that much of school, even our lovely supportive school, caused him stress and anxiety. But that music class was his safe place, his happy place, where he felt at ease, competent, comfortable and joyful. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">A reminder to all us teachers that providing safe and happy classes for all kids gets deeps into their cellular memories and will echo down the years their whole lives. May it be so!<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-89213072627947129282024-03-14T17:47:00.000-07:002024-03-14T17:47:08.365-07:00The Concert That Could Have Been<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">Some time back, I went to a SF Jazz Festival concert celebrating the drummer Roy Hayne’s 80<sup>th</sup> birthday. He had invited an all-star band that included Chick Corea on piano, Christian McBride on bass, Gary Burton on vibes, Josh Redman on saxophone, Nicholas Payton on trumpet and other guests. If you closed your eyes and listened to his drumming, you would have found it hard to believe that these sounds and that energy was coming from an 80-year old man! In jazz terms, he was killin’ it!!!<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">He began performing in the 40’s with the likes of Lester Young and Charlie Parker, in the 50’s with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan, in the 60’s with Stan Getz and Gary Burton, the 70’s with Chick Corea and Pat Metheny and yet more, making his last recording in 2011—and still performing past then! An extraordinary career, to say the least.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">At that concert, Gary Burton spoke briefly before one of the pieces, telling how Roy had invited him to play, but Gary had at first declined because it was too difficult for his schedule. Roy persisted and Gary finally said, “Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll come out to play for your 80<sup>th</sup> birthday if you promise to play for mine.” Gary was 62 years old. The audience did some quick math and laughed.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">Yesterday was Roy Hayne’s birthday. He turned 99. That concert I went to that feels almost yesterday was 19 years ago! <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">Last year, Gary Burton turned 80. Had Gary performed for the occasion, Roy would have kept his promise!!!! (Alas, due to health problems, Gary retired at a young 74 years old.)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">So happy birthday, Roy Haynes! And everyone reading this, please mark the occasion by finding some Youtube clip of this American hero playing! And then stop complaining about getting old!<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-2994612666873093482024-03-14T07:27:00.000-07:002024-03-14T07:27:08.199-07:00M.A.W.A.: Part 2<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">More from the art of creative insult. <o:p></o:p></span></i></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></i></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">1. "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Samuel Johnson <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">2. "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Paul Keating<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">3. "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Charles, Count Talleyrand<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">4. "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Forrest Tucker <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">5. "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Mark Twain <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">6. "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Mae West<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">7. "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Oscar Wilde<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">8. "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... For support rather than illumination."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">9. "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Billy Wilder<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">10. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Groucho Marx.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">11. "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Winston Churchill<o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-64596659011934861072024-03-13T19:36:00.000-07:002024-03-13T19:37:38.796-07:00M.A.W.A.: Part 1<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background: repeat white; border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-variant-caps: normal; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0in;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 6.75pt 13.5pt;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 13.5pt;" valign="top"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></strong><strong style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">Amidst many distressing facts about our one-step-forward, ten-steps-back modern times, the loss of intelligent discourse is high on my list. And that includes creative and witty insults. Compare today’s name-calling to yesteryear’s and you make a good case against the evolution of our species. </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">Conflict we will always have. People who just don’t click, who are jealous or envious of others, who shake their head with disbelief that someone with apparently mediocre talent and intelligence has risen as far as he or she has, are always going to make occasional disparaging comments about their fellow human beings. So if that is to be so, you might was well be clever and witty. <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;">Yes, friends, it’s time to Make America Witty Again! And here is the evidence before the court to convince you (stolen outright from someone’s Facebook post). Enjoy!<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">1. "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">Bring a friend, if you have one."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">"Cannot possibly attend first night, I will attend the second...If there is one."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Winston Churchill, in response. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">2. A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows, or of some unspeakable disease."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">· "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress." <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">3. "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">4. "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Clarence Darrow<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">5. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">6. “That not writing—that’s typing.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Trumann Capote (about Jack Keruoac)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">7. "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Moses Hadas<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">8. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Mark Twain<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">9. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Oscar Wilde <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">10. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Stephen Bishop<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">11."He is a self-made man and worships his creator."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- John Bright<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">12. "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;">- Irvin S. Cobb <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 23px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-33110070843974794392024-03-13T08:29:00.000-07:002024-03-13T09:22:41.318-07:00The Iron Ball<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background: repeat white; border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-variant-caps: normal; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0in;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 6.75pt 13.5pt;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 13.5pt;" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-variant-caps: normal; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0in;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 6.75pt 13.5pt;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 13.5pt;" valign="top"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;">My favorite Zen koan goes something like this:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;">“You have a hot iron ball lodged in your throat which you can neither swallow nor spit out. What do you do?”</span></i><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Such is the daily news. If you swallow it, your stomach is upset for the rest of the day. If you spit it out, you abdicate your responsibility to be informed enough to effect change. Meanwhile, it’s burning your throat. What to do?</span><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Here’s what mythologist Michael Meade suggests<i>:</i></span><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Creativity </span></i><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">is the only outcome</span></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></span><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">of conflict that can satisfy the soul. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">The problem with trying to “keep up with the news” is not only that it is so consistently unbelievable, that just when I think Republicans can’t sink any lower, they do, but that the various groups working for the kind of change I’d like to see have so many venues available to them and the ease of constant bombardments. The usual pleas keep falling through my physical mail-slot, but now they also clog my e-mails and invade my texts. And when they think it’s a good idea to get my attention with headings like “HORRIBLE NEWS!” or “WE’RE ON OUR KNEES, BEGGING AND PLEADING!,” they’re actually pounding my delicate boat of hope down into the swamp of despair. The tone is debilitating and the number is exhausting. </span><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><strong> </strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Getting the bulk of my news from Stephen Colbert helps and limiting the amount I’m willing to read helps as well. But though koans have no simplistic “right answers,” my solution to the hot iron ball is to become large enough that the pain gets smaller. To set myself inside a grander, more life-affirming story.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">In his announcement of an upcoming online workshop titled “The Creative Middle Way” (for more info., see<b> </b></span><a href="mailto:info@mosaicvoices.org" style="color: #954f72;">info@mosaicvoices.org</a>), Michael Meade says:<strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Contemporary patterns of conflict and polarization can lead us to feel discouraged and defeated when it comes to meaningful change. Yet, transformation and healing are the secret aims of the tension inside the opposites and inside life itself. <br /> <br />Rather than an impending end of life, the tension of opposites hints at a hidden third that can bring healing and renew the flow of life at a deeper level. The emergence of the third thing is a form of creation, a revelation of something timeless and ingenious trying to become conscious again. <br /> <br />The creative middle way involves the power of becoming; becoming aware of new ways of being as well as coming to know ancient wisdom again. This inner medicine of the soul is found in the moving middle where a person can awaken more fully and life can truly transform.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">I can testify that planning a class or workshop, teaching a class or workshop, improvising my way through jazz tunes, writing the next Blogpost, are all creative endeavors that indeed satisfy the soul. I’m pleased if the right candidate (ie, someone that actually believes in democracy and serves the common good) is elected, but it doesn’t feed the soul in profound ways. It’s a good small story, but it’s not the larger story we also need. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">We all are carrying our own iron balls in our throat, be they political or personal and often both. How do you manage yours? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto; border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-variant-caps: normal; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0in;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 6.75pt 13.5pt;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 13.5pt;" valign="top"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></i></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-23116198973128271802024-03-11T22:30:00.000-07:002024-03-13T08:28:01.419-07:00One Letter<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Sometimes it only takes one letter (or two) to move from darkness to light, from our worse selves to our better selves, from delusion to awakening. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Wealth Health<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Celibate Celebrate<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Belongings Belonging<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Hype Hope<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Selfish Elfish<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Lose Love<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Fiend Friend<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> Pleading Pleasing</span></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> Eliminate Illuminate</span></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Toxic Tonic<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Send me some more and we’ll make a children’s book together.</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span> </p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-78501330501311322832024-03-10T09:29:00.000-07:002024-03-10T09:29:53.323-07:00Picking Stones from Rice<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">A couple of lifetimes ago, my wife and I took a year off from school and traveled around the world. One of many highlights was living for three months in a small village in Kerala, India, where I studied a drum and she took some spinning lessons. Most days, we ate lunch at a little restaurant, every day the same dish simply called “meal.” The delightful waiter Seshan circled around with a big bowl of rice and scooped a portion on to our banana leaf plates. Then came various vegetables that circled the rice and a small bowl of yogurt to mix in and sometimes, a papadum crisp wafer. We ate with our right hand and the whole meal was delicious, nutritious, sensual and ecological (as we tossed our banana leaves out the door and the crows ate leftovers). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">But sometimes there would be a disturbing crunch and we found ourselves picking out a small stone that had been cooked with the rice. After this happened several times over many meals, we suggested to Seshan that we would like to keep our teeth intact. With typical humor, he answered, “Oh, you want rice <i>without </i>stones! Why didn’t you say so!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Indeed, when the rice is harvested and laid out on the patio, one of the jobs someone has is to pick out stones from the rice. Every day in this new modern world, I get some 30 e-mails and have to spend my precious time deleting the invitations for hair-growth or remedy skin tags or liposuction or printer ink, sort through the tsunami of political requests, decide if it’s worth it to open Nice News or Inspiring Quotes or History Facts or Words Trivia. Out of 30 e-mails, perhaps 5 are actually personal and/or important to read and what used to be a pleasure (“You got mail!”) is now a chore, doubled because I delete them both on my computer and my phone. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Perhaps it will help to imagine it as picking stones from rice so I can get to what actually feeds me. One of life’s little chores that is necessary if we’re not to break our teeth. The problem with the metaphor is that proportionally, there are many, many more stones than actual grains of rice! </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Oh well. I guess that’s what I signed up for when I agreed to be born in the 20<sup>th</sup> century and decided to keep living into the 21<sup>st</sup>. Given a choice between going to where no e-mails will ever reach me and spending ten minutes a day picking out stones, I’ll opt for number two. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span> </p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-61305634816222632622024-03-09T16:56:00.000-08:002024-03-09T16:56:05.408-08:00D.T.O.D.<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I never intended to write a blog post every day, but since I have written 365 the past three years in a row, it seems I set an expectation for myself. I’ve been happily tripping along so far in March, but today, find I have absolutely nothing that needs to be said. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">So I went to the piano and spend time, as always, with Bach, but then also Ravel and a few jazz tunes. Until I reached the point where there was nothing more I had to say musically speaking. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">That was the signal to just sit quietly, notice the breath, observe the mayten leaves outside my window moving in the breeze. And then this thought struck: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">When you come to the end of your words, the music takes over. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">When you come to the end of music, the silent breath takes over. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">From here two choices: <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: "Cambria",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></i><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Back to the words to report back what has come up. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>… or…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: "Cambria",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></i><!--[endif]--><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">When you come to the end of the breath, you have come to the end. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I’ll take number 1.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">PS D.T.O.D. is what my daughter used to say when I thought I said something important or clever: “Oh, is that your Deep Thought of the Day?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-91380943737494559712024-03-08T09:52:00.000-08:002024-03-08T09:52:50.196-08:00Paddling My Canoe<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">As one goes through life, one learns that if you don’t paddle your own canoe, you don’t move. —</span></i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> Katherine Hepburn<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I awoke at 5 this morning with a letter running through my head that I needed to write down. Nothing to do but get up and write it. I opened e-mail to send it and there was today’s “Inspiring Quotes” offering by Katherine Hepburn. So I put my canoe in the water and started paddling and 2½ hours later, thought I should haul it ashore and have a little breakfast. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Unlike the real canoe I sometimes paddle in Upper Michigan’s Lower Herring Lake, there were no morning birds singing the day awake, no glint of sunlight on the rippling water, no Thoreauvian awe of the beauties of this world. Just the tap-tap of the laptop keys as I sent out to some six different mailing lists the announcements of the film on PBS, my SF Jazz concert video now available, various upcoming workshops. Then came all the Mailer-Daemons (what does that actually <i>mean?</i>) and deleting obsolete e-mails from my lists. All this paddling (and more) to reach the shore of the work I was born to do so I have opportunities to keep doing it and spread the work I’ve already done. I hope Katherine Hepburn would be proud of me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">PS Alongside the paddling your own canoe metaphor, there’s the more negative “tooting one’s own horn,” meant as a reminder to stop drawing attention to yourself and for goodness sakes, can you be a little more humble? But hey, if you’re a trumpet player, tooting your own horn is exactly what you have to do! No one else is going to toot it for you. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I was talking to a friend in New Orleans yesterday and suddenly he said, “Dang! I wish were on Facetime. I just passed someone playing trumpet while riding his bicycle!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Now if only he could somehow do that while paddling his canoe! <o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-79062556175396370582024-03-07T08:08:00.000-08:002024-03-07T08:08:46.123-08:00A Passing Nod<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">When the rains let up yesterday, I zipped out of the house and went out to the ocean. The path at Land’s End that leads to the Legion of Honor Museum is always one of the more beautiful walks in the city, made yet more so by the welcome sun glinting on the trees and illuminating the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean. I made the wise choice to not listen to my Audible book while walking and after a while, began to notice that I was nodding my head and greeting each person I passed. And not only did they always respond, but sometimes we did so at the same time and sometimes they did first. What was going on?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Perhaps it was something in my body language, my slow gait revealing I wasn’t in a hurry, no earbuds or wires on me, my content face mirroring the pleasure of the walk. No matter the cause— the effect was so uplifting. Not the little dopamine rush of the Facebook “like” but the face-to-face contact that spoke volumes: “Here we are, two bi-ped members of the same species crossing paths as we traverse this great, green earth. Let’s celebrate this brief, brief moment of passing with a simple nod, smiling eye-contact and even spoken ‘hello.’ Neither of us wants anything from the other— not our bodies or our money or our political allegiance. Just this moment of acknowledging that here we are and here we are together and isn’t it a grand day?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Once I noticed this, I began to be more self-conscious and it became a little game to see if the next person I passed would play. That ruined it a little bit, but not much. Fact is, except for those talking on their phone or distracted by their dog, many continued to give or return that short greeting. I’m here to report that it made a difference. Next time you go for a walk, put away your phone, lift your eyes up and nod hello to those you pass and see what happens. Okay, maybe not during rush hour in Times Square, but in some less populated place with people walking more leisurely. Try it!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-63974269488359024332024-03-06T16:55:00.000-08:002024-03-06T16:55:53.601-08:00Me and James Brown<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Today I paused a moment and to my astonishment thought, “Nothing in my body hurts or feels off right now.” After a month of constant lower back pain on my right side, another month of spasms in my lower left back when I turned in my sleep, the constant dizziness I’ve been reporting, a slight ache here, an off-kilter feeling there, suddenly, without any pill or chiropractor or acupuncturist or outside intervention, suddenly this old body is just fine. Amazing!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">It could last for a while or perhaps just a day or perhaps change by the time I finish writing this. Who knows? But I just want to celebrate this moment, get up and dance and sing along with James Brown:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">“I feel good!! Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I didn’t think I could! Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah.…”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">PS While I was dancing like James Brown, my back went out!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">PSS Just kidding!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">PSSS Still I should be careful</span> </p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-55690093029574607912024-03-06T07:58:00.000-08:002024-03-06T07:58:34.821-08:00Me and Mr. Rockefeller<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">“If I never had a cent, I’d be rich as Rockefeller…”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">“Who’s Rockefeller?” think the kids when I teach them to sing <i>The Sunny Side of the Street</i>. I tell them that, though by today’s Bezos and Musk standards, he’s in the minor leagues, John D. Rockefeller once was the richest man in the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">He once was asked, “How much money is enough?” and he answered, “Just a little bit more.” I quote this often when discussing the false lure of money, its addictive nature, its promise to bring satisfaction and happiness and its failure to ever do so. Wolves of Wall Street, take note. And yes, there is some high judgement going on and self-satisfaction that I’m of the Emerson School of Success (see yesterday’s post). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">And yet, if I’m honest— and I should be— “just a little bit more” is what I feel about my own “successes.” The lift I felt with yesterday’s PBS news was exactly proportional to the disappointment I felt when I sent the manuscript of my new book <i>Zen, Jazz and Orff: A Life in Three Worlds</i> to a publisher I already had had some contact with and would be the perfect vehicle for this semi-memoir. And the very nice person responded with a polite “No thank you.” I don’t wholly endorse the reason— it’s a hard book to market because it crosses three genres and doesn’t fit comfortably into any one niche. But that’s precisely its point of interest, looking at what these three traditions have in common and how their tenets offer structures to help heal ourselves and our broken world. It’s an out-of-the-box book in a world that wants everything neatly packaged in a recognizable, easily shelvable box. The initial critique was not about the quality of the writing or the ideas, just the difficulty of marketing it. Sigh.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">So on the same day as the inflation of the PBS screening came the deflation of the book rejection. How much affirmation from World do I want? Just a little bit more. When I will be satisfied with what I have? When I have “just a little bit more.” How about appreciation? Happiness? Love? How much do I need? You got it—just a little bit more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">So Mr. Rockefeller, though I often feel as rich as you just by savoring the “gold dust at my feet, on the sunnyside of the street,” I also understand you when you want “just a little bit more.” Maybe we’re not so different after all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Meanwhile, back to work. I’ll send my book out to a couple of more publishers, but now I’m thinking I’ll just do it myself with my own Pentatonic Press, even if only 20 people buy it. I had fun writing it and I believe in it. The world will be just fine without it, but for some readers, perhaps it will move the needle .000001 millimeters closer to healing and happiness. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">And that is enough. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-15406328382564347062024-03-05T09:30:00.000-08:002024-03-05T09:30:20.274-08:00The Road to Success<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Early on in life, I had the sense that I had something to offer that I thought the World should pay attention to, something worthy that deserved its response. Stumbling into a job at school that guaranteed that kids would keep showing up day after day to test my proposition ending up confirming that my work indeed was worthy of their time and attention. It was enough and yet it wasn’t. So I began offering teaching-training workshops, building a mailing list and as described in an earlier blog, doing whatever it took to bring people to the music room door on Saturday— making flyers on old pre-computer machines, getting them copied, folded, stuffed in envelopes, addressed, stamped and sent. I wanted to walk this work out further on the roads to success —ie, people actually showing up at the workshop and finding the experience useful to their own teaching. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">The image of literally walking it all down the road feels right. World was mildly interested but made it clear that I had to do the walking. Later I graduated to a bicycle as my mailing list grew and then a car as I connected with the greater Orff network and received invitations to teach. No Sugar Daddys ever appeared to lighten my load or move it out beyond where I could reach, no big institutions had me climb aboard their big vehicles. From the workshops to the publications to the summer Orff trainings to the performances, it mostly was me doing all the walking/riding/ driving. Of course, I did get much support from Orff organizations far and wide, a few publishers before starting my own Pentatonic Press, welcome invitations to teach here, there and everywhere. But still, mostly the feeling of me riding that bicycle, that any ships coming in were mostly rowboats, canoes or kayaks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">But then came Samantha Campbell and her film project. Not only did she make the film and with her crew, do all the shooting, editing, sound, image enhancement and such, but she got it out there to the film festival world (over 20 in one year), all without me lifting a finger. It was like a limousine appearing at my door and inviting me in, saying “Relax. We’ll do the driving, have a drink back there and we’ll take you to the next place.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2yRpqYnGvl5WaIODL3cjeWzEbhc5Jmmm7wpGJ-dUNlUa9GCpSh3FyJ6HxwSt9rMm4iGEJD890nctty5KUNC7c0Rtr8-BFBNBOhS95ooDSFxf0-Eh2Pu8UoPfX5GKjAo8NRT8oydpR_5rDMn0647VlFzdYQv5vI1xxQboLl1PzCkyl3DSlHykOcCpeiJyn/s4032/IMG_7881.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2yRpqYnGvl5WaIODL3cjeWzEbhc5Jmmm7wpGJ-dUNlUa9GCpSh3FyJ6HxwSt9rMm4iGEJD890nctty5KUNC7c0Rtr8-BFBNBOhS95ooDSFxf0-Eh2Pu8UoPfX5GKjAo8NRT8oydpR_5rDMn0647VlFzdYQv5vI1xxQboLl1PzCkyl3DSlHykOcCpeiJyn/s320/IMG_7881.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">For the first time, there were much bigger wheels turning that I didn’t have to push myself and suddenly, last night, I went to the PBS Streaming site and put the film in search and there it was!!! Instead of the 50 to 100 people sitting watching at the Film Festival, now its available to literally millions of people throughout North America (no International streaming yet). From my rickety old bicycle to a fleet of limousines (or a private jet?), the roads my work is travelling are suddenly super-highways going to destinations I could never reach by myself. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thrilled by this new opportunity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">And yet still it was always—and still is— a pleasure to ride my bike on a small dirt road in a park. Success is sweet, but only inasmuch as it gets the word out further to more people and me still with a conviction that it’s a good word and good work that the world needs. </span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">So no contradiction to appreciate both levels of success. The outer one of fame (no fortune here) and the inner one as described by Emerson:</span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">WHAT IS SUCCESS?<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">To laugh often and much;</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">To win the respect of intelligent people and</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">the affection of children;</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">the betrayal of false friends;</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">To appreciate beauty;</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">To find the best in others;</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">To give of one's self;</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">sung with exultation;</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">To know even one life has breathed easier because you</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">have lived -</span><br style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;" /><span style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-center; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2;">This is to have succeeded.</span></i><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-7588977511863903642024-03-04T11:42:00.000-08:002024-03-04T11:42:33.547-08:00MR HEAD<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I returned from my first MRI. Was a little worried about claustrophobia in the machine for 30 minutes, but my three strategies worked pretty well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: "Cambria",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Listen to the sounds like a modern piece of music. I was hearing woodblocks, baritone saxophone and high trumpets, though I have to say the rhythms weren’t exactly grooving. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: "Cambria",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Keep my eyes closed and pretend I was in the dentist chair (where I usually close my eyes.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: "Cambria",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Attend to my breath, do some silent Buddhist chanting, see if I had Bach’s opening to Cello Suite No. 1 sufficiently memorized. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I was quite surprised and happy when I got the 2-minute warning and after, the attendant thought it took more like 20 minutes because I kept completely still and they never had to re-do anything. So I passed Step 1 of potential anxiety about finding out what’s causing my episodes of intense vertigo (one in July in Ghana, one in Australia in January and one in SF last week). But Step 2 is the much more important one—the results. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Which I just got a mere two hours later, announced by an e-mail and showing up in my online Kaiser page as MR HEAD. I thought it was a bit cartoonish to call such important results “Mr. Head” and then realized the MR was for Magnetic Resonance (the I for Imaging). The good news seems to be that Mr. Head is okay. At the top of the page it said in language I can mostly understand:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• No acute intercranial abnormality.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• Normal MRA head.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• Normal MRA neck.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Not sure what the A stands for, but I like the sound of normal head and neck and no abnormality. So of course I’m relieved that no cancer or brain tumor was detected. I’ll take it. The rest of the details mostly began with “no ______ detected” and also felt like good news. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">But there’s still Step 3. How do I find out what’s actually happening to cause these episodes? Between a brain tumor and dealing with lightheadeness and slight dizziness with occasional one-hour more severe episodes, I’ll take the latter. But something clearly abnormal is going on and I would sure like to know its name and how to deal with it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I imagine the doctor will call me and perhaps refer me to a neurologist. We’ll see. And had it been more severe, I wonder whether I would have read it online or someone would have called immediately. Not the time to complain about impersonal doctoring, as I’m grateful someone (I’m sure many people) invented something as extraordinarally complex as an MRI machine to figure out what might be happening in the yet more extraordinarally complex human brain. But in the midst of my confusion, a little TLC should accompany the MRI to make sure I don’t enter PTSD and need some LSD healing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">LOL!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Yours truly,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Mr. Head<o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-74024983077590646072024-03-03T09:20:00.000-08:002024-03-03T09:20:13.138-08:00Hands On<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">At the end of my colleague James’ 60<sup>th</sup> birthday party, we all went to a nearby hall for square dancing. Haven’t done <i>that </i>in a while and it was great fun. One of the moments when you can’t imagine why there’s so much conflict in the world, from nasty gossip to all-out wars, when we could all be dancing together instead. Come on, humans, let’s make better choices!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">One thing that really struck me, circling around doing the grand-right-and left where you join hands briefly with a great variety of people, was how <i>different</i> everyone’s hand is. Size, warmth, grip, texture, each one a world unto itself. Like our fingerprints, each one wholly unique, yet another affirmation that we are meant to be one-of-a-kind people who wholly embrace our particular character and genius while joining hands with all our fellow unique characters and geniuses. The universal and the particular always dancing together, whether it be to fiddle, drums or bagpipes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">This got me thinking about one of the favorite chapters in my <i>Teach Like It’s Music</i> book—the 4H Club. Here I make a plea for each lesson to be a dance between the head (intellectual knowledge), the heart (emotional connection), the hand (physical mastery) and the hearing (sensory awareness, in music’s case, the ability to hear profoundly and respond accordingly). In the section about the hand, I invoke the thinking behind the casual term “hands-on” learning and note how our language embraces the hands’ role, but our actually teaching in school often does not. Here’s a few paragraphs from that chapter. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">“Listen to all the expressions that equate the hand with <b>knowledge: <o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">I know it like the back of my hand. First-hand information. Second-hand knowledge. Hands-on learning. Handbook. Manual. Get a handle on. Grasp the meaning of. Reach for an idea. Be in touch with. </span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The hand also has a hand in <b>social relationships</b>. <i>Hand-in-hand. Take my hand. Shake hands. Talk to the hand. Upper hand. High-handed. Close at hand. Show me your hand (cards). Eating out of my hand. Helping hand. Right- hand man. I've got to hand it to you. Grab attention. Reach out and touch someone.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Work?</span></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> <i>Handy. Handiwork. Ranch hand. All hands on deck. Have a hand in.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Emotion?</span></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> <i>That was a gripping scene. That was touching. That was striking. </i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Our daily conversation is peppered with <i>offhand</i> remarks that speak a deeper wisdom than what we try to say— <i>the right hand often doesn't know what the left is doing.</i> No need to drive this point home with a <i>heavy hand</i>— our idioms speak for themselves. <i>On the other hand</i>, our understanding of the role of the hand in our development may be <i>handicapped</i> if we don't <i>gather</i> these expressions, <i>hold</i> them up to the light, even <i>poke</i> and<i> prod</i> them a bit to get them to speak more clearly. It <i>tickles </i>my fancy to think that <i>hands down</i>, the hand and its associated verbs are everywhere in our talk describing intelligence, character, work and social relations. Whether we're living <i>hand to mouth</i> or rising in the world <i>hand over fist</i>, the hand and mind are walking side-by-side <i>holding hands.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The rest of the chapter is well-worth reading, if I do say so myself. Put your hands on your keyboard and order it now!</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span> </p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-3480101394818165652024-03-02T08:34:00.000-08:002024-03-02T08:34:12.734-08:00Notes for a Rainy Day<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I have a folder on my compute desktop titled “Affirmations.” Notes or letters that people have written to me over the recent years expressing appreciation for the “aha’s!” and little epiphanies they experienced in my workshop or course. These are the encouragements for me to keep going, that my work makes an impact and means something for some people and that helps me re-dedicate myself to it at the full measure of my capacity. It also is a nice thing to look at on both a real and metaphorical rainy day.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I recently received this one from one of the teachers in my Australian Jazz Course. I remember her as playing some swinging flute solos and surprising herself with her own accomplishment (having not really played jazz flute before). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">“Dear Doug,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">So many times I have sat down to write to you and make sure you know how impactful your course was for me. The thing that finally gave me reason to write was our participant group chat going off asking for videos of something specific, and I fell down the rabbit hole of course recordings. And I found the one, the one that spoke to my soul - Mo Better Blues. It is still my most favourite that you shared with us, I think it was a light bulb/penny drop moment - the culmination of the previous 3 days' front-loading so I could enjoy, in such a pure way, the experience of learning this piece for the first time. Day 4 was also so poignant because of you sharing the Dark Room process for My Little Suede Shoes. Oh my heart!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">I am just craving more of what you gave us!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Doug, your experience and passion for how music can inform a student's experience of school life has been profound for me. I have read and appreciated your words in your books, but because it was brought to life and you shared with such conviction, it has lit such a fire in me. And it isn't that I was on the fence about these opinions, I have always known deep in my soul that these core principles of quality music education are transformational. I have been ignited because I realised I have been too polite. I haven't been firm enough in my advocacy. I have accepted too many times the notion that music needs to just stay in its box in our curriculum and be happy with the slice that I get.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">So thank you. Thank you for exquisitely informing my insight into quality music education. For further fine-tuning, on a granular level, what it means to advocate for music education and the power it holds. A million times over thank you. And I truly hope I get to see you and learn from you in person again one day soon.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">I wrote back:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Wasn't that the most lovely letter to receive! Brightened my day! Love the part about "being too polite." One of the perks of aging is that one cares less and less about being polite and more and more able and willing to speak from the heart of one's passion. While still trying to keep one's job! Retiring from school gave me yet more permission to speak the truth as I know it. (Though I also was suspended twice and put on a probation for doing that while I was teaching at my school!)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">At any rate, your kind words and your own deep passion are deeply appreciated and I wish you all the best in your new venture. As well as continuing to play Mo and Mo Better Blues on the flute!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Reading letters like this is a nice way to start a day. Off I go!<o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-74835390038123250022024-03-02T07:12:00.000-08:002024-03-02T07:12:05.762-08:00Monopoly Madness<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">March in San Francisco has most definitely come in like a lion. Twice today we’ve had torrential downpours and both times while I was driving. Within five minutes, there were little rivers I had to wade through. The morning was spent with the Men’s Group going over the upcoming ballot, with a long discussion about whether to vote to build affordable housing. Of course, housing should be affordable and to be homeless at any time is our culture’s grand tragedy, but made more alarming on a day like this. How does one survive a torrent like this living on the city streets?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Like everyone in San Francisco, I'm alarmed by the homeless situation. At the same time, I’m dead set against popping up high-rise housing randomly in the middle of neighborhoods where they don’t fit any sense of aesthetic, never mind tax the services, parking spots, density and such. The one exciting proposition was to convert all the pandemic-aftermath empty office space and create an actual living neighborhood downtown, complete with arts, culture, pedestrian walkways, all at affordable prices. But of course, that good idea was poorly framed in the proposition and looks like it won’t pass. A combination of the difficulty of converting office space to living space and proposing tax breaks for the wealthy who own the offices. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">And really, it all always boils down to “follow the money.” I don’t believe the problem is the lack of literal houses that now must be built to further make city living yet more dense and challenging and with these high-rise proposals, an aesthetic disaster. The problem is the astronomical cost of rents and mortgages precipitated by the dot.com explosion and the corporate capitalist ethos of “make the most money and people be damned.” I know this personally from trying to help my daughter buy a house from a neighbor who had been neighborly enough at our annual Christmas parties and such, but when I offered something significantly above asking price and wrote a sweet letter accenting my daughter’s meager teacher’s salary, her love of this neighborhood and such, he went with someone who bid higher because they could offer and he could choose to accept. In our thinking, most of us say, “Well, of course he would,” but in other parts of the world, people would be scratching their heads. Why would he do that? Especially with three more flats he has to sell. Monopoly is a cute board game, but a devastating real life practice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Rain is predicted all week and in California, it’s always a blessing alongside a horror for the homeless. But according to the lore, we can look forward to March going out like a lamb. Perhaps the dot.com boom that roared into my beloved city like a lion will also gently calm down to a loving lamb and allow people to live sheltered in homes with reasonable prices. Wouldn’t that be nice.</span> </p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-66654424424713660862024-02-29T08:22:00.000-08:002024-02-29T08:22:25.568-08:00 Leap Day<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Here we are, granted with an extra day. What will you do with yours? What will the world do? What if we declared it “Topsy-Turvy Day” and did everything the opposite of what we usually do? Israelis and Palestinians cross over the lines and enjoy a day playing board games together. Republicans and Democrats cook breakfast together and share stories about why they wanted to be in politics, what ideals they once held. Billionaires sell their super-yachts and turn the money over to school music programs. Everyone of all persuasions makes a list of everyone who has ever done them wrong and then forgives them all. Why not?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Well, probably because we’re the flawed human beings we are and it’s easier to just keep on with business as usual even if it harms us and others. So for some, it will be 24 hours more to savor this precious life and see what miracles we can notice and what kindnesses we can offer to someone. For others, it will be carrying on our self-destructive and world-destructive habits. For some, perhaps a combination of both.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">As for me, it’s a rainy day in San Francisco, so unless I’m ambitious enough to brave the weather with an umbrella, I’ll have to pause from five straight days of vigorous walking. I have a dentist appointment late morning and a sushi birthday dinner for my wife with my daughter and the rest probably the usual catch up with e-mails and piano playing just for the pleasure of it. Oh, and pick up the new toaster oven at Cole Hardware because ours finally gave up the ghost.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">One think I know is that there won’t be any leaping today. Feeling it harder to simply tie my shoes and get in and out of cars, it’s clear those days are gone. Happy Leap Day!<o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-79660674910692371982024-02-28T09:07:00.000-08:002024-02-28T09:09:40.710-08:00Turning Sixty<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">It is my wife’s birthday today and no, she’s not turning sixty. More like 74.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">It is also the birthday of my dear friend Julie (aka Ralf), who was my student when she was twelve and now (I think) is turning 64. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">It is also the birthday of my colleague James Harding, who I first met in Bali for ten minutes when he was 23. We met again in San Francisco when, at 26 years old, he came one day to observe me teaching a music class. And stayed for the next 30 years. Even in my retirement, we still teach side-by-side in the Orff summer course. And yes, he is the one turning 60. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">To mark the occasion, I sent him an old Chinese poem to remind him that these milestone turning of years is as old as ancient China and both our astonishment and our hopeful reflections seem to be a universal human experience. Here’s what Po Chu-I, a Chinese poet from the 8<sup>th</sup> century, had to say on the subject:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">ON BEING SIXTY<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Between thirty and forty, one is distracted by the Five Lusts. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Between seventy and eighty, one is prey to a hundred diseases. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">But from fifty to sixty, one is free from all ills.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Calm and still, the heart enjoys rest.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I have put behind me Love and Greed; I have done with Profit and Fame.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I am still short of illness and decay and far from decrepit age.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Strength of limb I still possess to seek the rivers and hills.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Still my heart has spirit enough to listen to flutes and strings.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">As leisure I open new wine and taste several cups.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Drunken I recall old poem and sing a whole volume. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Meng-te has asked for a poem and, herewith I exhort him<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Not to complain of three-score, ‘the time of obedient ears.’<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">(Translated by Arthur Waley)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Looking for this poem, I uncovered something I wrote for a performance at an Orff Conference that James and I were involved in. It was from our group <i>Xephyr</i>, a group of some seven Orff teachers who decided to create pieces applying the way we taught kids to our own creative impulses. This year, 1999, we invited other Orff friends and did a show with some twenty of us. One of the highlights was a piece about time that included Heidi Tzortsis, the oldest member of our group who had just (gasp!) turned sixty. Amidst our playing, singing and dancing, she read something I had written, an adaptation of a passage from Sandra Cisneros. As follows:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv9159199058ydpc1d3e16fmsonormal" style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Cambria, serif;">"What they don't understand about getting older and what they never tell you is that when you're sixty, you're also 59, 58, 57, 56, all the way down to 1. You look in the mirror and you see 'sixty' but inside you're still 8 or 18 or 42. You take the ferry and stand up front watching seagulls soar and suddenly, you're 23 on your first trip to a Spanish island with your whole life ahead of you. Or you go to a high school reunion and you're 16 again, palling around with the guys and flirting with Phyliss and Barbara. Or you just sit in your chair on a rainy night reading old journals and you feel your full sixty years, amazed by and grateful for the adventure your life has been.</span><o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="yiv9159199058ydpc1d3e16fmsonormal" style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor;"><span style="outline: currentcolor;"><i><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="yiv9159199058ydpc1d3e16fmsonormal" style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor;"><span style="outline: currentcolor;"><i><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Cambria, serif;">So when you wake up each morning, there's 60 different people you can be! You just open your eyes and think, "What age shall I be today?"</span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="yiv9159199058ydpc1d3e16fmsonormal" style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor;"><span style="outline: currentcolor;"><i><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="yiv9159199058ydpc1d3e16fmsonormal" style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; outline: currentcolor;"><span style="outline: currentcolor;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Cambria, serif;">That’s why, though wisdom is not guaranteed by the simple addition of years, those who live life with their eyes and minds and hearts wide open have something to offer inaccessible to the younger ones. They may be 25, but so are you, with the additional bonus of 26, 27, 28 all the way on up and all the lessons those years have offered.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="yiv9159199058ydpc1d3e16fmsonormal" style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv9159199058ydpc1d3e16fmsonormal" style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #1d2228; font-family: Cambria, serif;">The punch line: Happy birthday to all these important people in my life and everyone, please respect your elders! (Including Joe Biden!)<o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-19787229417975997222024-02-27T07:54:00.000-08:002024-02-27T07:57:37.277-08:00Cat on a Warm Wood Deck<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">On a recent plane trip, one of the movies offered was <i>Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. </i>I vividly remember seeing that as a teenager, this Tennessee Williams story with Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives. My main memory was a lot of adults shouting at each other and some excessive alcohol. I watched the trailer on the plane and it proved my memory to be correct. I decided I didn’t especially want to hang out these people for two hours and chose another movie. I didn’t feel like getting my cat’s feet burned on that hot tin roof.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I thought of this yesterday having lunch in the sun on my warm wood deck. There was a cat on the railing also basking in the sun and I had the good sense to observe her. I thought of Whitman’s lines from <u>Song of Myself:<o:p></o:p></u></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><u><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></u></p><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="long-line"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,</span></i></span><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">I stand and look at them long and long.<o:p></o:p></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"> </span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">Taking this time to enjoy the sun with the cat, I could feel the return of that self often buried in to-do lists,</span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"> not present when scrolling through the phone, blurred by the stress and anxieties of daily life. The cat’s </span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">contentment was my own at that moment, both of us just savoring a moment of deep peace warmed by </span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">the sun. For the cat, it is second nature—or rather, first nature. For us humans, we have to make a special </span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">effort to remember, to consciously decide to take time like this. Really, we are one confused species! Time</span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">and time again, choosing to be hopping around on a hot tin roof over sitting contently on a warm wood deck.</span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">As Whitman notes, again praising the animals: <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"> </span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">They do not sweat and whine about their condition,<o:p></o:p></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,<o:p></o:p></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,<o:p></o:p></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="long-line"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block;">Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,</span></span></i></span><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="long-line"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block;">Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,</span></span></i></span><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.<o:p></o:p></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></i></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">He got that right! I haven’t had a pet cat for over 15 years now, but I hope the one who wandered into</span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">my yard will come back again, reminding me to sit still and enjoy. <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style="background: repeat white; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;"> </span></i></pre>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-64771853900683784492024-02-26T08:51:00.000-08:002024-02-26T08:51:46.183-08:00My Carnegie Hall<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">My relationship with piano performance has been consistently off the beaten path. Though I started playing piano at 6 years old and never stopped, I didn’t dare claim myself as a musician until I turned 60. Even then, the usual choices of concert hall or jazz club didn’t quite fit. Here’s where I’ve played in the last five months or so:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• The Jewish Home for the Aged, every Friday I’m in town and now tailoring my repertoire toward the particular songs I know particular residents love.</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• SFS Jazz Center, sneaking in through the back door of Family Concerts. </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• Playing 90 minutes at the house of someone consciously dying through Euthanasia. Then weeks later at his Memorial Service. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• Playing the piano in my school music room when I subbed, warming up the space before the kids come in as I did for 45 years. At my retirement, many teachers and kids remarked on how that made such a special start to their day as they walked past the room. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• A house concert with saxophonist Joshi Marshall mixing classical music and jazz. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• Another one-piece performance with Joshi and singer Rhonda Benin as a “palette cleanser” in a concert for two pieces for 12 pianos. In the magnificent acoustic space of Grace Cathedral. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">• A “history of jazz” solo piano concert as part of my recent Jazz Course in Sydney, Australia. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Like I said, all unorthodox venues </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(10, 0, 37); color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">off the beaten path</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">. And then yesterday, meeting my nephew’s 6-week-old son and having the honor of playing the first piano music of his young life. I’m happy to report that after some cranky whining, he immediately got quiet when I started to play and stayed listening attentively until the end. I began with Bach’s Prelude No. 1, then on to</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><i style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Jeepers Creepers</i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">in honor of his big wide eyes (singing,</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><i style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">”Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those peeper, Jeepers, Creepers, where’d you get those eyes?</i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">”). On I went with Scott Joplin’s</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><i style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Maple Leaf Rag</i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">, the jazz tune</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><i style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">A Child is Born</i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">, one waltz by Strauss and one by Chopin, the tango-ish</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><i style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">La Paloma</i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">and then ended with an improvised blues. He was with me all the way!</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Whether 6-weeks old or a 103 years old, whether playing at a birth (haven’t yet) or a death, a wedding or memorial service or a simple gathering at someone’s house, at a jazz center or cathedral or retirement home, these are my Carnegie Halls, the kind of concerts I was made to play. May there be more!<o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-20599255513692078922024-02-24T15:39:00.000-08:002024-02-25T22:24:01.006-08:00Crossing the Borders<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I was talking to a colleague yesterday, agreeing that both our daughters had become fantastic teachers. At the same time, lamenting that both seemed to have sipped some of the Kool Aid that we had unknowingly served them— this business of calling out “cultural appropriation” when stepping over some imaginary line their generation has drawn. This disturbing trend that everyone needs to stay in their own lane and that if you’re “white,” you can create a piece about the Potato Famine in Ireland but not Japanese incarceration in the U.S.. If you’re Asian, it’s okay to teach yoga but you can’t say “Namaste” in class unless you’re Indian. (These are two actual examples from high school students). Which, as Black activist songwriter Melanie DeMoore notes, has the Republicans rubbing their hands with delight as the Left sends everyone back to their own corner, back to separate tribes. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">As someone who has spent a lifetime crossing borders and bringing back riches to be integrated into a new, larger, more inclusive culture, I find this deeply disturbing. Of course, cultural appropriation is real and damaging and I can give a thousand examples of people with political and economic power benefitting from stealing from the cultural treasures of the poor and disenfranchised. But that is different from cultural <i>sharing</i>, a practice I will defend until my last breath. At the same time we need to give more voice and opportunity for people within cultures to be “culture-bearers” and represent first-hand, we also have to recognize that what we celebrate in other cultures, particularly in the field of the arts, is something both exquisitely unique to the time/place/ circumstance of those cultural creators and also deeply universal, available to and able to touch all. And that simply being born into a culture does not confer that power to represent— it is earned by the long, hard work of tuning into that universal and available to all. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">To this point, I just read a powerful few passages in Kim Rosen’s book <i>Saved by a Poem. </i>While so many have dismissed cultures they know nothing about (especially all of us touched by white supremacy), my contacts with people, musical studies and</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(10, 0, 37); color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> brief immersions</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> in Dzodze,Ghana/ Kerala, India/ Ubud, Bali (for example) often have me romanticizing cultural and artistic practices from these places that have </span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">much to teach the world. But </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(10, 0, 37); color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">over-romanticizing</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> a culture can be as dangerous as dismissing them, as there is not a single culture worldwide that doesn’t have harmful thorns amidst its roses. </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Maasai in Kenya, for example. I know absolutely nothing about them and I’m sure a visit to a village would have me impressed by certain qualities I witnessed. But I do know that some practice a form of female genital mutilation that is not to be excused by the power of tradition and my inability as a Westerner to understand it. In Kim Rosen’s story, she visits a center that rescues girls from this barbaric practice. Many escape their families to travel alone through dangerous country to seek out refuge in this safe haven. Kim was visiting the center and one day, the girls were singing while cooking and then asked her if she knew a song. She recited a poem by Mary Oliver instead and because the girls knew some English, they sat in rapt attention. As described by Kim:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">“By the end of the poem, tears were running down my face and several of the girls were crying as well. Several of them dove toward me, wrapping their arms around my waist. There was a long silence. Then one of them asked ‘Who is this Mary Oliver? Is she Maasai?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">As Kim says earlier in the story, <i>“Within the potent space of public poetry recitation, any and every boundary line we humans draw around ourselves instantly disappears. It is holy without being denominational, political without being sectarian, intimate without being bound by gender, age or culture.” </i>That’s why you and I can read the poetry of Sappho, Rumi, Basho, Mirabai, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Yeats, Rilke, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Maya Angelou and countless others and feel them speaking to us across centuries, geographical borders, genders, life experiences. </span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt;">That’s why Mary Oliver, a white woman living on Cape Cod and in her 50’s when she wrote that poem, could speak to Maasai teenage girls halfway across the world. </span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">If we all go back to our little corners of personal identity and only listen to the music, see the art, hear the stories of people just like us, what hope do we have to become larger? </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">The poem Kim recited is titled “The Journey.” Because both our joy and our suffering is universal, it had the power to touch people different—on the surface— in every way from the poet. Once you read the poem below, you can see why it moved them: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background: repeat white; color: black; font-variant-caps: normal;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="width: 200px;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">One day you finally knew<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">what you had to do, and began,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">though the voices around you<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">kept shouting<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">their bad advice --<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">though the whole house<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">began to tremble<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">and you felt the old tug<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">at your ankles.<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">"Mend my life!"<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">each voice cried.<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">But you didn't stop.<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">You knew what you had to do,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">though the wind pried<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">with its stiff fingers<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">at the very foundations,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">though their melancholy<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">was terrible.<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">It was already late<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">enough, and a wild night,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">and the road full of fallen<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">branches and stones.<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">But little by little,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">as you left their voice behind,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">the stars began to burn<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">through the sheets of clouds,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">and there was a new voice<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">which you slowly<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">recognized as your own,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">that kept you company<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">as you strode deeper and deeper<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">into the world,<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">determined to do<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">the only thing you could do --<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">determined to save<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in;">the only life that you could save.<o:p></o:p></p></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"></td></tr><tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td style="padding: 0.75pt;"></td></tr></tbody></table>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-84632097164681812832024-02-23T08:11:00.000-08:002024-02-23T08:11:47.230-08:00Tulips in February<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I love San Francisco. Still. While the media loves to take their cameras into the Tenderloin and magnify the depravity, homelessness and drug abuse there, they will never, ever, come visit the Arboretum and show tulips blooming in February. Friends from afar sometimes now comment to me, “Oh, I’m so sorry what’s happened to your city” and yes, while homelessness is real and on the rise and needs to be dealt with, so are the tulips real. And the blooming magnolia and plum trees and the people strolling in the park enjoying them. So are the people playing ping-pong or dancing on roller skates or biking out to the ocean on carless roads to inhale the ocean breeze. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Today I will walk at Crissy Field with its stellar view of the Golden Gate Bridge, a place that once was an abandoned military airport runway transformed into vibrant wetlands and inviting walking and biking paths. It's part of the Presidio that was owned by the military and when they packed up and left, in came the cultural transformation with a live theater, museums, a recently revived Tunnel Top park with a free shuttle to the top of the Presidio where you can enjoy tennis courts, playgrounds and stunning views of the Bay. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Later I will play piano at The Jewish Home for the Aged, where my Mom was so lovingly cared for the last six years of her life and every penny paid by Medicare. Nearby is The San Francisco School where I worked for so many decades and is still going strong with its culture of rigor combined with fun, a place where children and teachers are given the invitation and the tools to bloom their happiness. This morning, my daughter will do her monthly seven mile walk to school going through different parks and neighborhoods and almost all of her 24 5th grade students from the SF School will meet her at 5:30 am (!) knowing the delights that await them and the memories they will carry forever. Tonight, I’ll go to the Balboa Theater, one of the few remaining old-time movie theaters in my beloved city that has suffered from the loss of so many, but is holding on to this time-honored institution.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">So my friends, don’t drink the Fox News Kool-Aid that San Francisco is a wasteland caused by too-liberal politics. We are alive and kicking still, gloriously green and vibrant and mostly a delightful place to live and raise children. We have to deal with the connected issues of homelessness and too-high rents and mortgages birthed from the dot.com explosion, but name a city that doesn’t have its own issues to deal with. But how many can boast of hundreds of miles of trails to hike in the fields and woods just across the bridge, the ever-increasing city bike paths, the rise in jazz clubs alongside SF Jazz Center, the 7-mile walk through neighborhoods offering burritos, sushi, dim-sum, pho, piroshki, pasta, falafel, fresh crab. Not to mention tulips, plums and magnolias blooming in February.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Our once-resident newspaper columnist Herb Caen wrote constant love letters to San Francisco and once said:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">“When I die and show up at the pearly gates, I’ll look around and say, ‘Well, it looks alright. But it ain’t San Francisco!”</span></i> </p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-160731629459950531.post-84438902822501301792024-02-22T10:14:00.000-08:002024-02-22T10:14:52.661-08:00The Joy of Normal<p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">With neither undue pride nor shame, it’s safe to say that my life has not been normal. As a Jewish by blood/ Unitarian by upbringing/ Zen Buddhist by choice who plays banjo, accordion and Bulgarian bagpipe, this is not your typical American upbringing. Add to that my mixed-race grandchildren, African-American Orff teacher, Japanese Zen teacher, South Indian and Ghanaian drum teachers, Balinese and Ghanaian xylophone teachers, Spanish colleague, my travels to some 65 countries and teaching in 50 of them, a lifetime of teaching music in a job that pays me for slapping my body and playing clapping games with children and this doesn’t feel like a typical story. Memorizing some 30 poems, 300 jazz standards on the piano and as many folk songs with guitar, crying in front of people without apology and there’s more deviation yet from the red-blooded American male norm. Throw in growing up in New Jersey, going to a college in Ohio where I got credit for hitchhiking, wine-tasting and canoeing and living, for goodness sakes, in San Francisco out on the physical and cultural edge of the continent and the case is closed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">“Norm” and “normal” are terms derived from a carpenter’s square that measures out right angles. To be normal is to fit into the straight and easily measurable. Good for woodworking, but not always the best for a life. A norm in any culture is a convenient fiction that assumes a certain standard—like the American one of the nuclear family, the straight white male power grid, the 9-to 5 job, the suburban home with the two-car garage— all of which can be—and has been— used against people to show how they don’t fit in. On a positive level, the old norms too casually accepted around race, sexuality, gender, religion and such have been thrown up into the air to enlarge the definition of who we can be and how the culture benefits by the increased diversity of ways we can be. On an a negative level, our adaptability as a species that requires us to accept any behavior that is repeated often enough has us in that most bizarre new norm whereby a former President who told 20,000 documented lies, incited an insurrection, is loyal to no one including his partner Vice-President who apparently could be hanged without remorse, who is indicted for 91 counts of breaking the law he swore to uphold, who has the support of alleged Christians supporting alleged family values while sleeping with porn stars , who boast that he can pass intelligence tests that most 3-year-olds could ace and is still somehow a viable candidate for re-election with the full support of his party—well, this is about as far from normal as any of us could have imagined even ten years ago. And yet the media keeps portraying it casually without an inkling of the “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND??!!!” outrage it deserves. The new normal is a shitshow beyond belief.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">But why title this “The Joy of Normal?” Because as Maria Montessori so wisely said:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">“A place for everything and everything in its place.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I mentioned a day of doctor’s visits trying to figure out why I’ve had two extreme episodes of dizziness and now an ongoing chronic light-headedness. That included getting some bloodwork back and a scheduling for an MRI. The bloodwork results came back today and in 8 out of 8 categories, the results were all within the normal range. That’s the place where normal is to be celebrated! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Not so happy with the audiology test I took the same day but not surprise that I have significant enough hearing loss that it’s time—as many people have told me—to get a hearing aid. I’m below the norm and though somewhat normal for people my age—especially musicians who have played Balinese gamelan indoors and Bulgarian bagpipe—</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">I wish the results were better. But this is a new normal I’m willing to accept.</span><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="yiv3489598010ydpe42c2619msonormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #0a0025; font-family: Cambria, serif;">The moral of the tale? Sometimes it’s good to be normal. Sometimes it’s better not to be. Apply as needed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Doug Goodkinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07092282268914985541noreply@blogger.com0