ground plane XXI

 

fly away

Dear Jennies,

Jenny Lewis is a Radio Dodo regular, and you should put her on your playlist, too.  Here is your Jenny song of the day!  More Jenny Lewis, right here, whenever you are ready!  And you know what to do if you need even more: let your little fingers do the typing.

turn away

 

Dear Looking for a Song,

I sometimes listen to a radio station that does not have a DJ; which is awkward, because you don't always know what you heard. Which is fine and serendipity and all that; but sometimes you want to hear it again, and so you go to your great oracle and you enter some words & phrases and you get not what you want.  But, no worries, I found it for you!  Your absolutely fabulous song for today!!!

carried away

 

weather.gov*

Dear Dodoheads,

Here is a song, your song for today, that will carry you away with its airy vocals and lilting chords.  If you are like, maybe of a certain age, you will be carried to a time past as well; a time where the room was filled with paint fumes and pencil shavings; the deep concrete sill of the window is covered with bird seed, and pigeons have come to eat.  The sky is light but not blue, and very large.  The song is playing on a tape that a comrade has given you, and the swirling sounds suggest even more and further endlessnesses.

*  Am I allowed to use this image image without clear understanding of air pressure high in the atmosphere?  Yes, yes I can; and you can too!  Because, kittens, we are using it in appreciation of its formal beauty, its aesthetic qualities.

from far away

 

Dear Waiting, 

They say good things come to those who wait.  I dunno.  I do know, that some things have come to me, that I never expected to arrive.  For example, the Pine Siskin- it is a bird that is in my range, my area, but for years (like 16!) I never saw one at my feeder, but then I did see them!  

For a long time I searched the skies for a condor; I live near(ish) to their historical range and the range they set about recover the species in.  I first saw one at the Grand Canyon, and that was a delight, but then, after another wait, then I saw them in Pinnacles National Park.  They are always there in Pinnacles, from my experience, and one day, I will look out my window and see one here.  

But that is about further waiting.  My message today is about what has arrived, despite years of unlikely wait.  This year, the aurora arrived at my back porch!  No more hunting it, it came to me!  I can hardly believe my good luck.  

I took a long trip, like one does, to see Yellowstone National Park some years back- when you go there, you have a list of things you want to see so you can award yourself imaginary badges.  You might see bear, bison, geysers, mud pots, elk, bighorn sheep, moose, beaver, otter, and wolves.  We saw bison, geysers, and mud pots- I don't call it a failure, but it isn't all that many badges, considering.  I went to Alaska, too, where you are almost guaranteed an orca and a bear, but those badges will have to wait.  Also, you might see wolves.

Can you guess where I may next be going?  Well, I am not going anywhere, because now, the wolves, the darling wolves, the wolves of all your fairy tales and metaphorical fears, are coming to me!  I can't wait!

PS  You probably can't wait to hear that song again, either, and you don't have to!

b(l)ow away

 

Dear Magnetic,

I love this!  Love it!  I know you will too!  Maybe you will also want this.

Don't walk away, René

 

Dear Suzanne,

Here at the Dodo, we are very lucky to have a jimdandy public radio station with a bunch of great DJs that play things I would not hear anywhere else.  Here is such a song, your song of the day!  Whenever I am not writing to you here, I am listening there.

skate away

 

Dear Long-Time Viewers,

If you have been a regular reader you will know that it has been an age, an age!  Of over 5 years (January 11, 2020), since  I have added a new roller rink to my list!  Now, another thing you know already is that I live for a list, and if not for enumerating, inventorying, itemizing, cataloging, and tabulating I'd be in ever so much more of a dither and a pother.  

Oaks Park Roller Rink makes the 40th roller rink I have visited, and the 37th I have skated in.  (There are three that we did not skate in; in some ways they don't count but I count them in a parenthetical way.)

The Oaks Park Roller Rink is also the best rink I have been to- it has edged out the Sunrise Roller Rink in Citrus Heights- which maintained its preeminence for 10 or 12 years!  What Oaks Park and Sunrise have that makes them the best, is a rotunda wood floor.  This is where the boards are bent to follow the curve of the corner.  Wood skating floors can come in two other main types: all the boards running the same direction, or with a hex pattern, with boards set at angles in the corners.

Oaks Park is probably the oldest rink I have skated.  It has been there since 1905!  It has a huge skating area- 20,000 square feet!  And an amazing Wurlitzer that we happened to be there to hear for the Sunday organ skate session.  The floor is the smoothest thing ever; there are rinks named Paradise, but Oaks Park is Skate Heaven.  If you think it sounds good, it is!  If you go to only one rink in your life, let it be Oaks Park.  There is a little hand rail place for beginners, a space on the side of the rink for more practice, and at the back of the room, a place with wood moguls to skate!  Opposite the practice and organ key board side there is a big snack bar and nice seating for folks who want to rest or watch.  They have a skate shop, too, because Oaks Park Roller Rink has everything!

run away

 

Dear Listeners,

Here is your song for today- I am a big fan of these two people singing and playing as Birds on a Wire.  I am betting you will love them too.

the days away

 

twenty-six hundred

 

Dear Rollers,

Well, here we are again; another hundred days!  I had a few lessons in skating over these last100 days, and we learned a thing kind of like this, under another name.  When I say learned, I mean that I am working on it, and sometimes it comes out not too bad.  Summer is a good time to take a lesson in skating- here is a nearby place you can get lessons, and here is another.

If you feel grumpy and hot and don't want to see any other humans, well then, get yourself one of these (in one of many spiffing colors) and roll around your house and driveway in splendid isolation.  That's where I'll be.

you tangle my emotions

 

Tom Petty's boots.*

Dear Radio Dodo Listener,

Ooooh!  Today's song is so good!  If you have been tuning in for a while, you will see that Tom Petty is often played here; because I love his descriptions of how we feel.  And that is that.  But there is also, the fact that my favorite Petty songs are sung by women.  "Don't Come Around Here No More," is made more, made larger by Rhiannon Giddens.  You'll hear it.  It isn't an opinion, it is a fact.  There is also, as further evidence, Lucinda Williams singing "Changed the Locks."  These versions are peerless.

*  I wonder, too, as I imagine you do, what would it be like if we put our feet in those boots?  How would we walk and where to?  I think about this with the artifacts of other people too; Judy Garland's ruby slippers, Johnny Cash's big black Manuel Cueva's suits, Linda Ronstadt's cub scout uniform, the fantasy of inhabiting those people and places.  I know I'd want to wear these things into the Seven 11, and I would want to smoke heroin, and I wouldn't take any guff wearing these duds, not even from my relatives.

the power

 

   More raised fists.

Dear Comrades,

I have your song for today, and I have a lot of other suggestions, too, but I know you are weary, so let me make my points in bullet form:

Be radical.

Subvert.

Resist.

Speak up.

Don't worry too much about how, because it needs doing in every single possible way.  This is, I hope, The Day.  The day that we will look back on, in our memoirs, recollections, and histories, and we see that this was the day it began in earnest.  These past few months are the days leading up to the overthrow of our oppressive and murderous leaders.  Think forward to the victory; the Universal Basic Income, the housing, the healthcare, the social services, the open borders, the freedom of science, art, and education; the field of daisies that all this will be, must be.

just my way of saying: it's not all bad??

 

Dear Ones,

I have been sulking on The Situation; forgive my absence.  If I don't want to poison others with my desultory feelings of doom, what can I do but stay out of sight and earshot?  A question to be considered, but not to be answered right now, right here.  There are things going on all over, even as fascism continues to roll over us; it is  a slow march down into a deeper hell.

This little mouse is filled with lavender- I made a whole mess of them many years ago and this one was all moth eaten!  Yes, I made them to put in drawers and 'repel' moths!  This one was sitting on the bookshelf.  I decided to repair it with some really lovely sock yarn that I got for free from the wonderful Fiber & Fringe.  The wool it is made of was a from a coat I had made even longer ago, and the tail & ears are of the silk that lined the coat.

Additionally, the lavender was still very strong smelling, as it fell out continually as I repaired the holes, and you know what else?  This repaired one is so beautiful!

directions

 

Dear At the Crossroads,

Today, I offer you direction: 

listen to this;  (also here, at 11:25).

watch this;  (where?  Hopefully someplace that is easy for you to get to).

read this.  (ditto).

Yes, all are essential, but if you must take only one, let it be the song of the day.  If you cannot read the book, take instead this wisdom from it:

"To reckon by achievements was to make a concession to the prevailing system of the world; it was a departure from the austere, disinterested, exacting standards that Lady Slane and her kindred recognised."

it's a sky blue sky

 

Threadbare/Fadenschein, Helena Hafemann.

Dear Y'All,

Did you know there was such a thing as a Horrible Mean Bad Woman?*  (I found it on the internet, of course; just like Woolworth's, it has everything!)  It's like a Feminist Killjoy but even more transgressive.  It's right up my alley.

My feeling right now is this:  ah, I see you have something there; a little crusted piece of societal expectation?  Why, I'd be delighted to smash it for you!  It's no trouble at all.  

Here is a song we can whistle while we smash; won't you join me?

*I found it on the internet, of course; just like Woolworth's, it has everything; you should try it!

Mr. Fox

 

Dear Reader,

I know you have heard enough from me on the topic of What to Read; especially right now, at the onset of whatever it is that 'Summer Reading" season is.  (Lot of is, in that sentence....)  And for me, it just happened to fall here, this great book.  It happened to fall because I was at my online used book place and the Robot Overlords that run it suggested this book- now, let me clear: they suggest books to me every time I go there.  Mr. Fox is the very first time I have taken their advice:  why?  Two things: the author was not an Old White Man, and the cover was just exactly what I want in a cover.  In other words, I judged this book by its cover and I found it very good!

The cover is a treat, and I send along an image of it, so you can appreciate it, even if you end up with a different edition.  Look at the pale celadon!  The paper-doll type figures!  What could be nicer than that?  But, but, I don't want you to read it because of its cover, and I want you to read it because it is so good, so imaginative, so multivalent.  And no, I don't want to tell you anything about it, because, isn't that why we open a book?  To find a surprise?

However, I am willing to go out on a limb: anyone with a summer reading quota would be delighted with this book:  Give it to all your friends & lovers, your book club pals & your sisters and your cousins and your aunts.

As for me, well, I am going to make a start on the books I hadn't read that are mentioned in Mr. Fox, in my usual non-robotic meta method for finding new titles:

Transformations

From the Beast to the Blonde

The Woman in White

Tess of the d'Ubervilles

Thérèse Raquin

Madame Bovary

In addition to that weighty and academic list, I think I will add Bluebeard's Egg, and White is for Witching, but don't expect a review too soon; I expect to take my sweet time reading all of that.

More June

 

June Carter playing Johnny's wife.

Dear June,

I have more to say to you, on this ennui, and I have a song that is not very jittery:  Here is June Carter, playing guitar and her song, Ring of Fire (also autoharp, if you watch the whole clip).

don't let us get stupid

 

Dear Whomever,

Hear my plea, it's your song of the day!  So short, so sweet: have another.  

More (June Jitters)

 

Barbara Billingsley playing June.

Dear Junes,

It's not always so jittery, June, but this one is.  There is nothing to do; nothing to be done about it.  I read books about being old, older than me, old and waiting.  You practice and practice; trying to wait with patience, with dignity, but it's all just jitteryboredomdoom.

Here is your song for this jittery, jejune day.  

The Museum of Accidental Images

 

Dear Chance,

I don't know about you, but I love these blurry images I get as a bonus with every package that is delivered by my good pals in the brown and gold, the UPS people.  This one, well this one is so good that it inspires me to open a museum to accidental images.  Now, no; it cannot be ALL accidental images, it has to be curated; only the best accidental images will do for the museum!

June Tune Soon (Jitters)

 

Dear June,

Your song is this song, Please Be Still.  It will take some effort- please apply yourself.

31

 

Dear Listener,

How about we finish out May with some music?  Here is Niagara, and here is St Etienne.  Two songs for today!  If you are thinking, huh, I could use a little more of that, well, I played about a dozen Niagara songs looking for the right one, and they were all right.  As for St. Etienne, you cannot go wrong with any of their songs, either!

Wells

 

Dear Emily,

Ooh, I love Emily Wells!  She has everything that I want in my ears.  She also has side projects, like Pillowfight- and Used to Think is your song for today!  Now, we don't really have this feature at the Dodo, the Shop for Today, but if we did, I'd send you here- Emily Wells will sign any music you buy from her!

skies

 

Dear Blue,

This song is nearly 99 years old this year.  It just keeps getting better, and it is your song of the day!

Pop Star

 

Dear Pop Star,

Yes, the thing is the metaphor, but we don't always agree on what it is that is like the first thing.  It's more than a feeling, and the reason is, my Pop Star, Marianne is a metaphor for your manhood.  See: letting the days go by.  And how does all this loss feel?  See: pretty Pamela Brown.  

And you know, you know I love you, you men of the patriarchy, but it's just such scraps, all scraps that are left.  The thing is, and you know this too, if you have any power your responsibility is not to abuse it.

the last Tove

 

     

Tove Jansson

Dear Readers,

This is the last, for Sun City anyway!

What was a conversation, and what could it mean?  Mutual consideration of important things.  Communication of experience and memory.  Construction of possibilities for the future.  To clarify and recognize together, and to observe the changes in a glance, a tone of voice, a silence- the silence of hesitation or understanding.  To shape without altering.  To laugh, or to sit quietly in common shyness that was never expressed.  

 

more Tove

 

Tove Jansson

Dear Friends,

Let this next excerpt from Tove Jansson's Sun City be a warning to us:

It was not until her ninetieth year that Miss Ruthermer-Berkeley began to ask herself whether her long life and not been lacking in what was once called a heart's desire.  A much too rigorous upbringing may have had something to do with it, but essentially, she realized, it was all her own fault.  Without sense or consideration she had striven for perfection and thus had lived with constant anxiety, anxiety for everything left incomplete the day before- work, duties, conversations- and anxiety for the day to come, which had to be shaped to suit her wishes and the demands she made on herself.  Lost in the future and the past she had not been abele to live in her own moment.  It was really a great shame, an omission that had probably made no one happy.  

 

I hope you don't recognize yourself in this passage- as for me, well, I wasted miles and years on perfection and anxiety; but there is time, maybe to loiter and play yet left.

Keep an eye out for one more bit from Sun City in a future post- if you don't want me giving you these tiny spoonfuls, you know what to do!

 

delayed gratification

 

Tove Jansson*

Dear Y'all,

I have two things, from beloved author Tove Jansson for you.  I will send you the next one soon.  I want to spread out the loveliness, to make it last.

Making it last is why- when I first started reading her books, the three volume edition of Moomin comics that the library acquired 15 years ago or so, and then the wonderful Moomin books, and then, then the amazing books for whatever an "adult" is-  I did not rush to finish all her books in 1 or 2 years.  I was very sad to have read the last (as in, the only one I hadn't read yet) Moomintroll book, so I have to take care not to read what is left too quickly!  

I am not sure exactly how many are left to me now; I have for certain, two on my shelf, and one that I know of but do not have.  I guess, if there are say 5 more, and I live another 25 years I should read one every five years?  Ah, but even as I write that to you, I see the flaw: what about the unexpected early death!??  What about missing out entirely on the few that are left??  Well, this is the rush and roar of our gambling, gamboling lives, isn't it?  Here today and 5 books unread tomorrow!  Still, I don't want to be one of these manic over achievers, so, maybe I will read just the two books I have before the end of the year.

But, I digress:  Here is Tove Jansson from Sun City, & yes, you should run (but be careful of that bus when you cross the street!) to your library or bookshop so you can read the whole delicious thing.

There has to be time to think, thought Mrs. Morris, an opportunity to reflect.  The time that writing requires, a mute communication, would leave space for deliberation.  Almost everything we say is marked by haste and thoughtlessness, habit, fear, and the need to impress one another.  So much needless triviality, exaggeration, and repetition, so many terrible misunderstandings.

PS  

Do you suppose that I am only pacing myself like this because I want to feel superior in my emotionally intelligent plan for delayed gratification?  C'est possible.

*  I don't need to tell you that you want (desire deeply) to read a book by a woman that looks like this!

Lynx Boa (Self Portrait), 1974, Tove Jansson.

(See also, related:  Dodo: 4/28/2025)

T is for to do.

 

Dear Ones,

The issue of now, the urgency of now is always a thorn in my side.  It just keeps on pricking.  I have some time-based tasks today; and I did three of the things, and then, you know, as a reward I went to do the thing I wanted to do; to read through the letter T in The Alphabetical Diaries, and then, at "The fear...." I was struck by the obviousness of my thought patterns- I saw beyond task management to some notion that all my problems would be solved if I could only (fill in the blank)... and I knew I wanted to tell you this, and right away!  So that you might save yourself the entrapment of this kind of thinking.  Which is a long way of telling you that I interrupted myself, spurred on by the self-doubts of the narrator, to doubt myself in the same fashion, and to see, to have it dawn that this is how we are.

(Another interruption: a bird just came to the door, to eat insects from the spider web covered door frame).

(The elder cat is also miaowing).

The following of the thread through my discomfiture leads always to the oldest (and dearest?) of my ineptitudes- the one that I must have taken on as a 3 or 4 year old.  It proceeds like this: I think why didn't I do that task already?  And the answer is because you are foolish, lazy, etc.  Why am I foolish lazy, etc.?  Because I lack ambition, because I lack care, because, because, and why the lack of ambition?  Because, because, and it goes like this, all leading back towards the Ur failure, the Ur flaw.  Like a Greek tragedy.  It is because you (I, one, we) thought you did not fit in a way, we perceived a lack; criticized for a little something that you didn't or did have, and you think, in total sincerity and absolute mistakenness, that if you could just fix that thing, that Ur thing, all these other failings would cease to be.  All the problems of your inner world- relationships, contentedness, productiveness, self-worth- would evaporate in your sobriety, your eating discipline, your productive routine, your independence from sugar, caffeine, any manner of drugs or medications, your willful self-control, your optimism, your commitment to wellness, your non-smokingness, your fitness regime.  And here we are, trying as always, most abjectly & self-injuriously, to think of the whole generative life force of nature as being a thing to win at, to master.  

Yes, tears are appropriate here, because it is sad.  But, I hope, not hopeless.  May we see that our lives do not revolve around some ancient mistake or lack, may we feel that there is time enough to do some things; this or that, either or both, or neither, too.

the musical question

 

Dear Radio Dodo Audience,

Today's song asks so very hauntingly, very beautifully, are you with me now?  The answer:  I am.

 

Chapter headings, French, late 1800's.

Dear Books,

I am thinking on chapters today.  Why & where the break?  How does a writer choose when to suggest, fairly strongly, that the reader stop there, for a half page of empty or a month of dust gathering?  

I know the rule for the paragraph; put is where you change topic.  But that, that is a matter for debate:  if I fret over it too long, I don't string sentences at all.  I start mulling and stop writing.  But, again, those are the same, or at least, writing and mulling don't call for a paragraph change.

Mostly, as I was educated on the feral side of civilization (yes! a true cave, with an actual dingo for a dad and wolf for a mother- should this go in a different paragraph?), mostly I try to keep the stripes of text and space looking nice- oh, and to have three of course is nice- having three, or five, makes my writing seem learned, proper.  One definitely wants something to seem proper, especially when it isn't, or there is doubt about it.

And so the chapter continues to mystify.  Maybe there is a class or course I never got to; a class beyond the paragraph rules, a course that defines the preferred form for chapter breaks?

PS  

Well, yes, I know, this PS could make the fifth, and I could look it up, and you know, I tried to; very feebly, in the way that a mountainous surfeit of a thing (information) makes a person not really want it.  I clicked on a link to an essay on the history of the chapter and it had a paywall, and well, there we go then, choosing to frugally stay in ignorance, but more than just that, also to in this case stay in wonder, to stay in further contemplation of the chapter instead of seek a Definitive Answer.  As Violette LeDuc's Lady and the Little Fox Fur says "...after all, ignorance was also a perpetual promise."  

anything

 

Dear E.,

Anything you want, you got it.

Love,

M.

in motion

 

too early

 

Dear Things Beloved,

Just this:

One should never look at what one loves too early in the morning - the things we love are too fragile so early in the day, as fragile as the thread a spider is spinning at the edge of the wood.

From The Lady and the Little Fox Fur, Violette LeDuc. 

a few lines

 

Dear Listener,

Pick up the line; follow the lines; get in line.  Or not.