Pssst! Wanna know a secret…

Psssst! Do you wanna know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?? Okay. Here goes…

I can type with one finger only since having hand surgery a couple of months ago, and my fingers (accustomed to touch-typing learned eons ago) refuse to share knowing where those darn letters are located on my keyboard with my brain, so I couldn’t write any posts for awhile.

PHOTO RIGHT: ‘Things are improving. No more hand brace!’

Life is a learning process. I keep discovering stuff and you, dear reader, are lucky because this is a BIGGIE, and I’m sharing it with you free of charge.

The secret????? ‘If you don’t write, they won’t read!!!!!’

It isn’t that your followers purposely desert you. It isn’t a devious plot — but without a reminder from WordPress about a new post, they just go on with their lives with nary a thought about you. They’re having coffee with friends or guzzling gin tonics and you’re the last thing on their minds. There’s nothing deliberate about it. It just happens.

You are hereby advised. Be aware!

SWhere you been?

Meanwhile, WordPress has ‘improved’ their system and I can’t figure out how to fix the quote below this last image. It should say: So, where have you been.’

Nor can I figure out how to get the quotes I want to be below the images to work like they used to. Oh, well. This isn’t the first time in my life I’ve been confused.

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Haven’t I Seen This Movie?

Judy Parker and my favorite cat Bear

I’ve been housebound during this stressful time of COVID: 19 and Judy is one of those special friends who have stayed in touch. She has been checking in by email every single day. What would I do without friends like her? Thank you Judy and also to the many others who have not forgotten me.

Judy Parker is a brilliant, published author and an avid reader who contributes much to our book club. I am fortunate to have her in my life.

Thank you too, Judy, for allowing me to share your work with my readers and to love your cat Bear.

Lucky me.

P.S. Please note the spaces between Judy’s poem’s lines are because of my lack of expertise with technology. Please disregard them. Thank you, Muriel

 

Haven’t I Seen This Movie?

By Judy Parker

Small town or big city. Lonely cabin or

Michigan Lake beach. I was there

dark lane. South Pacific Island.

Sandy beach on a sunny day.
Cue ominous music. Where is the
cheerleader? The old geezer? The jock?
Somebody gives warning but the
warnings are mocked. “Run away! Hide!
Stay in your homes!”
The monster creeps closer,
slithers or slides, stomps on the cities
or eats the new bride. And everyone parties,

Where is the cheerleader?

unaware of the screams, until they’re
the victims, and it’s their blood that streams
over the cobbles or down the morgue drain.
Finally it’s over, the movie is done,
and no one’s too worried about who is gone.
It’s only a movie. It’s all in fun. Monsters
In movies will leave us alone. But the monsters
we face now will follow us home. This isn’t
a movie. It just feels like it’s one.

Jkp

The movie is done…

The Jock?

Porgy and Bess — the opera

Many important issues were covered on Broadway in those 1930s musicals — issues which society would not have been comfortable confronting in other ways. Just as comedy was, and continues to be, used to help us deal with the unbearable, musicals often presented audiences with differing views than their own. Audiences were thus encouraged to look at and rethink their own attitudes.

 

 

‘Porgy and Bess’ the first and only opera created by the famous American Gershwin brothers, was written and first performed in 1935. Unfortunately, George died of a brain tumor in 1937, so no more operas followed. The magnificent songs alone make it worth seeing, however, this masterpiece is so much more than only beautiful music.

 

Eric Owens is Porgy and Angel Blue performs Bess (The Gershwins would have been pleased by the casting)

 

 

George Gershwin, 1898-1937

The Gershwin brothers, whose parents

Ira Gershwin, 1896-1983

immigrated to the U.S. from Russia, like my own — for good reason, well understood discrimination, prejudice, antisemitism — and racism. For this opera, they insisted that all performers appearing in black roles, be black. This at a time when opera singers in the U.S. were white only and using white performers in black face was common.

 

Marian Anderson 1897-1993

 

 

Contralto Marian Anderson waited until 1955 to be able to perform in a Metropolitan Opera. Before that, she performed in concerts in Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

The libretto of Porgy and Bess, set in 1920‘s South Carolina, makes a powerful statement regarding the vulnerability of the black community’s attempts at survival. All this years before Dr. Martin Luther King came along. Shamefully, the struggle still continues today.

But, if all you want are songs, Porgy and Bess has glorious songs: ‘Summertime’. ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’, ‘I Got Plenty O’Nothin’, and then some. Definitely worth seeing! (I saw the Metropolitan’s Live Broadcast at a local theatre, and yes, all black roles were performed by black artists — as the Gershwins would have wanted..)

Am I addicted too???

I’ll come clean and admit it. I think I’m addicted. I don’t watch TV; I no longer smoke; I’m much too poor a loser to gamble, and so crazy sober I don’t have to drink. But, I do have a secret and maybe getting it out in the open will be the first step towards conquering it.

I didn’t grow up with modern technology. Heck, I remember us having a telephone party line! The bookkeeping machine we used in the early 60s took up a whole wall.

In the 1960s we got a ‘bookkeeping machine’ (something like this) which took up a whole wall

I’ve looked askance at those who are addicted to their I-Phones. I especially judge young mothers on the bus who give little ones phones to keep them quite. (Those I-phones damage very young eyes — something to do with pixels.) I carry a cell-phone too, but only for emergencies and rarely use it.

Once upon a time, we just used an adding machine

 

 

The bible says: ‘Do not judge or you too will be judged.’ But now, I’m beginning to wonder. Am I also addicted???

Am I also addicted???

I’ve followed the same routine for years. When I worked as a columnist and technology allowed me to email my articles in, I learned to become an expert at creating multiple stalling tactics to avoid writing.

If you picture me approaching my computer with glee, impatient to communicate with you, that ain’t necessarily so. Yes, I like expressing my thoughts or frustrations, but that doesn’t make it any easier to get started.

First I must go through my routine

First, I must play a game of Boggle. (Its good for my aging brain.) Then, I need to have (no more than) three games of solitaire. (Same excuse.) After that I check my Blog Stats (always interesting) then I read my email, answer those which require immediate attention and leave the others for later, or maybe never. After all this, I make all the phone calls I deem necessary, followed by the phone calls which are absolutely not necessary, and then, reluctantly, will get to work.

Waddaya think?

 

When I do start, the writing is easy enough. Its just getting to it that’s so darn hard. So, waddaya think? Is my routine an addition? Am I addicted too???

The last day of the year…

The last day of a decade. Kind of special. I’m taking the day off. Yup! Honest. For real. I don’t know when I’ve ever done this before, I’m an ‘A’ type who usually does what she’s planned or should.

I’ve got a good excuse. They’ve issued a ‘rain warning’. They don’t usually do that, rain isn’t unusual here, especially at this time of year. They’ve cancelled some celebrations for tonight and talked about millimeters expected to come down on our heads. (I have lived here for years but still haven’t learned what millimeters actually are.)

Home reading a really good book

I’m not acknowledging my pedometer today as I usually do, but staying in and reading

Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult’s ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ which I can hardly put down. The book is about a couple who have a child who has leukemia. There’s no match to help her in the family so they decide to have a new child specially designed to be a match. When she is 13, she sues her parents for using her as a donor throughout her life. I’m reading about the court battle right now and don’t yet know how it ends.

Any illness in a family, physical or mental, can have dire consequences on everyone involved and this is clearly seen in this novel.

If you celebrate, enjoy!

Meanwhile, this is a good opportunity for me to wish each of you the very best for 2020 and to thank you for visiting my blog. I love that you live in at least 110 countries — that’s how many I’m aware of since I’m not always home to note new ones.

If you celebrate, enjoy! I didn’t make any resolutions. Don’t have to. I’m perfect as I am — and so are you.

 

 

afternoon naps…

photo by Chandra

Hail the snuggly, comfy, fabulous and relaxing afternoon nap; that rejuvenating miracle I’ve indulged in since email came along. I toss off my shoes, puff up my pillow, crawl under my soft covers, and — ahhhh. What does email have to do with it, you ask? Listen up, email changed my life!

Years ago I worked for a local newspaper. I appeared at their offices every weekday morning, wrote on whatever subject the editor told me to, even — twice a year — fashion.

If we met, you’d know it was kind of hilarious

(If we met, you’d know why that was kind of hilarious.) However, I’d long ago been taught a good writer can write about anything, so I managed to think of something to write on the subject.

By afternoon, my brain is barely functional

I’m an early morning person. By mid-afternoon my brain is barely functional. A nearby cafe, opened for breakfast and lunch, closed at 3 p.m. Each day at 2:30, you’d find me there buying a cappuccino.

Fueled on caffeine, I managed to survive the rest of the afternoon. (Friend Hans once added up how much I spent on those cappuccinos per year. It was a shock.)

How much I spent on cappuccinos was a shock!

Later, writing from home for several newspapers, I could email my articles to the editors. As long as I met deadlines, no one cared that I crawled into my bed after lunch

No one cared that I crawled into my bed after lunch

to do what brilliant people in many countries do — take a nap. My eyes, tired of looking at my computer screen, delighted in this indulgence which, in time, became a necessity. It doesn’t even matter if I sleep or not. I close my eyes, listen to the radio, and R-E-S-T. I’ve renamed my daily snooze. It is now referred to as my ‘beauty nap’.

I’ve become more beautiful

 

I declare to anyone who will listen to my insanity that I’ve become more beautiful than ever.

 

I once asked my doctor about my naps. He heartily approved!

He heartily approved

Is a nap for everyone? Maybe not, but I recommend it highly, and if aging gives one any wisdom at all, just maybe I’ve accumulated a little along the way. (Ahem!) If you decide to try for yourself, let me know how it goes.

 

Am I too sane to write really well?

photo by my Chandra

The other day I attended a ‘Music in the Morning’ concert featuring pianist Pedja Muzijevic, which was not only enjoyable but, for me, particularly interesting. Am I capable of judging the artist’s talent? Of course not. I certainly enjoyed the performance and felt it worth braving the rain and windstorm that chose to hit our city that day.

Said storm created floods and hazards and made it difficult for me to obtain cabs and I got soaked. (We are, after all, located in a rain forest.)

 

Pianist Pedja Muzijevic

 

On the program was Robert Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9.

Clara Schumann, (1819-1896)

Robert Schumann, (1810-1856)

In introducing this selection, Muzijevic said something about Schumann which I’ve been thinking about ever since: ‘Schumann, being mentally ill, wrote music without boundaries.‘

(Schumann’s wife, Clara, was also a gifted composer and musician and deserves mention here.)

 

This was the first time in many, many years since I’d heard something like that. Way back in my 30s, when I still hoped to someday write the ‘great American novel’, my husband and I had a friend who was a psychiatrist. One evening when he and his wife came over for dinner, he told me I would never be a great writer because — I was too sane!

Dinner conversation years ago

He went on to say he had some patients who were very successful authors, who were able to write things ‘normal’ people can’t. People who are sane, he continued, have something like a protective fence around their brains and they tend to stay within those perimeters. People who are not sane don’t have that barrier. This makes it possible for them to follow ideas outside where you would not dare go.

I’ve never forgotten that evening so long ago and the interesting discussion we had over dinner. This week was the very first time since then I’d heard that same idea expressed. What do you think of it?

Reading Richard Wagamese

photo by my Chandra

It’s Canada Day today. I’m home with a bothersome cold, which wouldn’t be nice to give to anyone so I’m alone, listening to the CBC and reading Richard Wagamese. Good, they’re talking about Canadian Literature. Since reading is one of my greatest pleasures, I’m interested. They haven’t mentioned any of our native writers yet, but they may.

Our book club has given me the gift of discovering,

Ojibway author Richard Wagamese, 1955-2017

often for the first time, many writers I didn’t know of before. The books we chose to read this month are ‘One Native Life’ and ‘Embers’, both by Richard Wagamese. We

Indian Horse by Wagamese (now a film)

had already read two other of his books, ‘Medicine Walk’, and ‘Indian Horse’, each of which were very worth reading. (Indian Horse was made into a movie, but I haven’t seen it. I don’t like to see films based on books I’ve read. I like to hold on to it in my own way.)

We lost a special Canadian when Wagamese passed away in 2017. He was an Ojibway journalist, radio and TV broadcaster, and producer. All of this in spite of an abusive childhood and little education. (His parents were Residential School survivors.) Wagamese was only 61 when he died and certainly had more books left in him. He did, however, leave us a rich legacy. I’m now reading his ‘Embers’. Here are a few quotes from this account of his journey in learning how to live.

An easy read, yet full of wisdom

‘I am a traveler on a sacred journey through this one shining day.

Walk gently on the earth and do each other no harm.

We live because everything else does.

A gift is not a gift until it is shared.

Keep what’s true in front of you.

Freedom is letting go of bounds and barriers, and hurling yourself into the adventure of living.

Let the mystery remain a mystery.

Be filled with wonder.

Take the first step and try to make it beyond.

Shout something.’

I hope this moves you to read ‘Embers’ and then more of Richard Wagamese’s books. Enjoy!

I may have a cold, but I’m enjoying my day doing one of my favorite things.

 

 

Write to a special teacher…

photo by my Chandra

Once upon a time, in sixth grade, we were introduced to Shakespeare.

The three witches in Macbeth

Our teacher, Miss (sounds like) Merovitz, taught Macbeth. She acted out the roles as she read aloud — she must have known the play by heart and obviously loved it. I was mesmerized. The woman turned me on to Shakespeare. Much later, I thoroughly enjoyed his work and Macbeth remains my favorite.

In junior high, we had a class called ‘Music Appreciation’. Mr. Hopper, our teacher, played recordings of classical pieces for us and at exam time, we were expected to recognize the piece and know who the composer was. (I made up words to the music which helped identify which piece was which. It worked.) One

Mussorgsky 1839-81

was ‘Night on Bare Mountain’ by Mussorgsky, another, ‘Fingal’s

Mendelssohn 1809-47

Cave Overture’ by Mendelssohn. (By the way, I highly recommend a fascinating book called ‘Mendelssohn is on the Roof’ by Czech author Jiri Weil — a fascinating read.)

 

Jiri Weil 1900-59

Was Mr. Hopper an especially, exciting teacher? Absolutely not. He was a bore — in retrospect probably a shy man who played piano. However, he received ten tickets to the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of Saint-Saens’ Sampson and Delilah. Why he chose to give ME one, I’ll never know. Montreal didn’t have an opera house then. Undaunted, the Met performed at the Forum, a hockey arena. My seat high up in the bleachers wasn’t too high for me to be enchanted. I’d never seen or heard anything so beautiful. To this day, merely two of the first notes of that gorgeous aria are enough for me to recognize it. (Mr. Hopper would be proud indeed.) I’m sure I thanked him for the ticket, but that would have been all. I had no idea what an important role opera would play in my later life.

This October, for the first time since I saw this performance so many years ago, I will see it again. The Met is doing Sampson and Delilah. I’m excited. I’ll be in my seat at my local theatre on a Saturday morning watching, listening and enjoying.

Saint-Saens 1835-1921

At the time, we held teachers in awe — like one step down from God. I certainly didn’t feel they would be interested or care about my reaction to anything. Besides, it was many years later, after my children were grown, that I was finally able to find the time to attend performances. Only then did I realize the gifts these two teachers had given me so long ago.

Things have changed. Teachers are now more approachable, students have easy access to email and can more easily send notes of appreciation to teachers who are special in some way. My son, Rafi, teaches high school. He receives notes and letters from students, former students, and parents who want him to know how much they have appreciated him. I know how much it means to him and love that it happens. So, if a teacher has been meaningful in your life, do take the time to let him/her know.

 

Rafi, teacher of the year, 2012

Okay I’ll brag. I’m a proud mom. Rafi was nominated ‘Teacher of the Year’ in 2012 out of 5,000 teachers in the county. The guy was born to teach. He profoundly cares about his work and his students. He’ll probably be annoyed with me for doing this, but do watch him at it in the short video below taken during a student walkout at his school where an unpleasant racial incident occurred right after Trump was elected. Go, Rafi, go!

To see him at it, click below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Z5ePJSVtrBSTBxb3BMam9zeGs/view?ts=58572979

 

Dear Chris….

photo by my Chandra

I’m trying to eliminate clutter. It’s my true effort to become a thoughtful parent. Unfortunately, I find it almost impossible when it comes to my files.

Tackling one of the thick folders of correspondence from my late friend

Hans. He was a lot of fun…

Hans, I re-read one of his letters and just couldn’t bring myself to dispose of it. It is  too funny. Right behind it was the following poem he wrote to Christopher Columbus. If you were me, could you toss it out?

 

 

 

‘What I always wanted to say to Chris but was afraid to’

by Hans Muller

‘Mister Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus, by Granger. I doubt he was much fun.

you’re in history’s vein a thrombus

which, on wide spread urgery

should be removed by surgery.

By Soviet-style complete excision

lest history’s held up to derision

occasioned by your sine-qua-

non mis-historical faux-pas.

What befogged your addled brain?

There was no smog or acid rain,

no radio or T.V. commercial,

nothing crass or controversial

to have made you cause such terror

by your gross baptismal error,

christening our natives ‘Indian’.

Did you hear them speaking Hindi-an?

Did you see them wearing saris?

Your fraudulence tops Mata Hari’s.

Had odes been sung in Amerindian,

not Shakespearean or Pindian,

but sung in praise of Red Man’s Gods,

you’d probably call those odes odds.

You would call a square a rhombus,

wouldn’t you, Signor Columbus?

 

You’d misquote the works of Homer,

The Nina (Santa Clara), Pinta (Spanish for ‘the painted one’ (prostitute), and Santa Maria

you champion of the crass misnomer.

No more of your mumbo-jumbo

Don Chistoforo Columbo.

I shall ask the nearest cop

to jail you, Mister Malaprop

for the lies with which you bomb us,

Mister Christopher Columbus.

 

*Hans, who could speak/read about five languages, had no problem making up words in any of them. He believed in having fun.