Dear All,
Are you busy this week? Are you cooking & thanking? Well, I have something that goes with that, and with a recent post on Murder Ballads: A Narcocorrido. I spied it next to Teenage Tragedy Song, and I think you are going to love it; it's the song of the day!
Dear November,
I have not forgotten you! Quite the opposite: I know you are here, the time of the soft light and the low sun, and Orion lying on the ridge each evening. I am happy to know you, November! I have been busy, because you know how it is, December is coming, and November, as usual, is mainly used to prepare for December and January. But, you remain a favorite, and I have been shopping for gifts for you!
This year, I thought you might like a pink tortoiseshell comb, a rain coat, and a jar of crunchy chili condiment. I also thought you might like this link, to a wonderful poetry project at the MoMA. I got it from a friend, and I hope you enjoy it.
Until later this month!
Dear Radio Dodo Listeners,
What do you like best? This or this? Write me at the usual address in Pueblo, Colo., and let me know, won't you?
Distancing Bench, Kimberly A. Kelzner, 2020.
Dear Listener,
I want it now, and that must be being in the moment, musn't it?
I worked many years to learn to say yes to things, and now I find it was the wrong answer, and I have to train myself to say the much more difficult, but shorter, 'no.'
I made a great confession; and I told how it made a lie of so much I had done; and my confessor answered that 'we need an ego, too, you know.' Did I know that?
Join me, if you like, in asking yourself these questions, or, just play this song for the day, and read about the musical genre of the Murder Ballad. Next week, we shall write our own Murder Ballads and put them in a safe place, like the Smithsonian, to be examined by the enlightened folks of the future!
Dear Listener,
Here is your song for today; I hope you have time to hum along with it. Have the original, too; it's a lovely, cinematic song, with all kinds of musical references.
Sketch, Vincent Van Gogh, 1888
Dear You,
They are playing our song! That has only happened twice in 22 years! Still, it's worth noting, celebrating. The starnies are shining bright, and I still believe it was the right song to choose. Can you imagine? The pressure of choosing just one song? One song, to mean everything? To mean for keeps, to mean 'love', to mean union? I don't know that I could do it today, but I was younger and more confident in those days.
Now this is a bit of a digression, but I lived in Edinburgh for a summer once, and we studied Scots poetry. Scots poetry means Bobbie Burns, for one thing, and a lot of translating for people like me. I loved this, of course, because I love words in all languages. I love that they have all these shades of meaning, and that starnies could equal little stars in basically the same language as my own. If I could get anyone to listen, I might just spend every day talking about a beautiful word of my acquaintance. Or, maybe I don't mean 'listen' so much as I mean 'get paid to.'
I have talked at length on working, jobs, vocations, and careers lately; and it has me asking you this question today: what do you wish they paid you to do? It's only right, I feel, to answer as well as ask, and I think I want to be paid to run a roller rink and to encourage people. Does that sound lofty? What the heck do I mean by 'encourage'? I mean that I want to tell people, often, and on a one to one basis, that they are okay, they are alright, they are here, they are fine, they are heard and valued. Yes, it does sound a bit lofty after all!
