a day in that blue month September

 

maquette III, Moon of Alabama, bronze, Lynn Chadwick

Dear Maria,

It's so funny to be seeing you after so long, girl!  I saw you in a book I was reading; The Quest for Christa T.  It was in German, but I looked at a translation and I remembered that I knew your song well!  It's your song of the day!*

* And if you also, first met Bertolt Brecht through your fervor for David Bowie, we should start a club!  Let's screen some shirts and start a zine!  How about we call it Zinzin?  Zinzin Zine!  It's another new word for me this year and one of my favorites!  The rest of you?  Well, you already know Bertolt Brecht only you don't know you know him!  For example, Mack the Knife.  Or Pirate Jenny  Or maybe you are a Doors fan?  Yeah, that's B. B. too!

that's just some other time

 

Detail of lace dress, 1900.

Dear Women,

Have you ever read The House of Mirth?  I think maybe that Edith Wharton wanted me to feel, at least in part, that Lily Got What Lily Deserved, and then died happily ever after in redemptive glory.  I just couldn't, though.  I felt like Lily was sold down the river before she was born; I felt like I did one day when my friend was really tired and unable to cope, and she was asking her fool boyfriend for some help, in an indirect but utterly desperate way, and this person, this Man acted like he didn't understand her need, when even a stranger across a room could have read it.

Perhaps Edith Wharton just wrote it, and said it like it was, and left the figuring out what to feel for Lily Bart to the reader.  There is also a chance, and this disturbs me greatly, that romanticizing the suffering of tragic women leads to acceptance of the Patriarchy, and what am I to do with that, I ask you?

The thing is, people need help from each other, all the time, for lots of things they cannot cope with alone.  Let us know that, and let us offer help and seek help from each other as often as we can; taking care not to romanticize our suffering, and if we cannot, then we will keep on waiting for the man.

atmosphere

 

Dear Ones,

Here is your song of the day!  Temporally, it has nothing to do with today at all, consider it random.  Except, well, randomness is hard to take and hard to make.  

Here is what is on my mind today:  just what all is our self-loathing responsible for, anyway?  It could be a lot.  I know I am pretty motivated by seeming 'nice,' and lately I don't even know what that might mean.  I know I respond often from my low-level shame.  I never thought this stuff was shame; all the little I-screwed-this-and-that-up feelings, but I think, years after someone tried to explain it to me, that it is an ashamedness.

Another great bit of guidance that I struggle to assimilate:  you are not responsible for your parents' feelings.  It's been with me, as a kind of place to get to, a map destination, since a bus stop on the Isle of Wight in 1989.

Here is a more recent one, about 6 or 7 years old now:  Everyone makes mistakes.  Now, I know what you are thinking, everyone has heard that, but when a woman said it to me that time, I understood it differently.  I did not just hear the catch all phrase we use to dismiss little irritations and problems, or the cloying 'don't worry be happy' of its comforting, its reassurance.  I heard 'we cannot live, not even for five minutes, each and every one of us, without making what constitutes a mistake.'

Please let me rephrase again what I heard:  Not 'oh well, no biggie, pas de problème, no worries, it's all good,' etc., but 'all we do, endlessly, ever and anon, is make mistakes, this is called living, and the antithesis of it, the place we are supposed to want to go to, the place of 'perfect' or 'correct' of 'right again' is an unholy place, a prison that builds walls between us, a pit of despair where everyone is against you, and you are alone in your perfection and nothing else can breathe there- no insects, no plants, no flowers, no time.'

Random thoughts?  I think not.

It's Monday.

 

Dear Radio Dodo Listener,

Your song for today, a Monday.  Care for a little Monday set?  Here it is:

Blue Monday

I Don't Like Monday

Monday Morning

Monday's Rain

Stormy Monday

Manic Monday

New Moon on Monday

Monday Monday

Blue Monday

Friday Nite

 

Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket, 1875, James McNeill Whistler.

Dear Dancers and All,

Here it is, two Friday Dance Party songs- umm, well, one actually; but two versions.

Nite Flights 

and Nite Flights.

I'm afraid I can't help it.

 

Dear Revelers and The Rest of Us,

Here is your song for today.  Thank goodness for songs for every occasion!  Here's a charming bonus feature.

I would, if I could

 

Dear Radio Dodo Heads,

If I could, I would give you Autobahn every day.  Only a few tunes are good enough for daily use; here is another.  And this one.  

Write to me, at the usual place, folding your letter and weighting it under the large granite cobble; tell me which is your favorite.  Or better yet, add to the list.

Song & Spectacle

 

Dear Listener,

Here is your song for today.  And that goes double from me:  I got you.

A letter.

 

Dear Hermoine,

Your song for today.

What nests within?

Dear Radio Listeners,

This is your song for the day, but just like the Matryoshka doll, it also contains many songs.  Additionally, it is the delight of the day, because it's a real pleasure to watch these two performers ham it all up eight ways to Sunday.

808

Dear Eights Again,

Your song for today.

Tonight.

Dear Friends of the Music,

Here we have our song for today, sung by Iggy Pop with backing by David Bowie.  And here, is another version, sung by David Bowie duetting with Tina Turner (I know; we are not worthy).  If you call me right now, I won't be able to answer, because I will be playing this on Old Blue, my not very old at all green guitar.



PS
A dance mix, too, if you can dig it.

We never get old.

Dear Peter Pan and Wendy,

It just dawned on me, and you will find it unbelievable, that when people say they will not grow old, that they mean that they will die before they get old.  I see now that this has been an enormous misapprehension of many things- poems, songs, essays, and novels.  I tell you, I really thought it was meant more metaphorically, as in, they will be forever young in spirit.  Or, that it meant that they will never grow up in some ways, remaining childish or immature.  Or that it meant that they were cursed with a kind of magical stasis.  That it is a euphemism for dying young, hadn't hit me until today. 

Today's song for today is one that I have been misunderstanding in this way for 33 years.

the debate continues

Dear Women,

I have been considering the Bundt pan as a symbol of the tyranny and shaming of 'decluttering' for nearly two years now, and it turns out I am not the only one to recognize the Bundt pan as a weapon in the raging war of 'stuff' vs. 'organization.' 

Why the Bundt pan?  I found it being sold at a friend's house in a garage sale and my friends' explained their Marie Kondo induced epiphany vis-à-vis the Bundt pan.  They used it barely once a year, and really, even though the cake was delicious, they only made it once a year.  The cake may have sparked joy, but the pan did not.  It couldn't be kept for such a minute fraction of duty.  I mentioned that it might be a problem when one wanted to make it and there was no pan, but this wasn't even audible in the landslide of stuff they were shoveling out their garage door.  They were headed for a new life, in a new town, and they needed less and different stuff for their new life. 

So be it.  I guess I can't rescue every Bundt pan in every home in every town.  A one-woman crusade to save occasional cake-making? 

I give you this article, on the politics of kitchen spaces; see what you think about it, and enjoy, above all else, the freedom you have to hold onto your Bundt pan or to give everything away.

Lucky 13.

Dear Who-Ever,

This is it, she's here, and I wonder if she is my Woman?  The Woman I hoped Wonder Woman would be, a face for feminism in the 21st. century.  There ought to be legions of faces of feminism, of course, and there will be, one day.  Note her garb, and although you can't see them, she wears sensible work boots that mean business.  She dresses for adventure.  I hope you do too.

Last night, I saw her on the big screen, and I am happy to report that although there were only about a dozen viewers, one young woman was dressed exactly like this Dr. Who.  I felt keenly the bonds of sisterhood. 

See how they haven't made the mistake of dressing her as a sex object?*  I send whoever was responsible my deepest thanks.  True, she looks like a wasp and she's blonde and very pretty, and that isn't asking much of me as a viewer, but the character of the doctor has the card-carrying power of the sci fi alien- always a visitor; and never fully aware of canons like Western Feminine Beauty, so there will be opportunities (I hope) to examine our expectations and conventions through this stranger's eyes and ways.

As an example, I have been fretting about how much she looks like a bank teller since last year, but when I watched her be The Doctor last night, my assumptions of her appearance were subverted, and I am pretty sure that I Approve.  Now, anyone who watches any of these shows knows that time will tell, because we are made aware of the character's complexity over many episodes and narratives.  Which is really the glory of television:  meeting in time, across seasons and years, to listen to some adventures of characters we have the chance to get to know well.

*  Don't get me wrong, of course I want my cake and eat it too; if this 13th Doctor doesn't have or allude to many amorous encounters of the 'man in every port of the cosmos' kind, I will be greatly miffed.  Try this for a song for today, and note the de Chirico set.

Just looking.

Dear Fellows,

Your song for today is a fabulous slice of the road, the times, the places, and the people.  This song is pretty much perfect, except for the fact that there is also this song (the orange bled the blue), and this one, competing for pre-eminence in the Paul Simon oeuvre.

Play them all and send me your preference by pigeon, or bottle; or leave a note at the Greyhound station for me.  Mark it 'For Catherine.'

The moon rose over an open field.

The orange bled the blue.

Driven to its knees.

To Clarify.

 

Dear Unsure,

Be thee of good cheer.  You do get it; don't believe for a minute that you don't.  If you still want convincing, though, that art is best when it is unspecified, ambiguous, and open to your own experience, then read this guy:  He's a Guy, a Published Guy, and I hope you will take all the powerful consensus and proof inherent in his Position As Such and believe this Man.  He pretty much explains everything in detail, and leaves no doubt.

I just confirmed these facts myself yesterday with a young woman artist of my acquaintance and I almost kissed her for acknowledging the intuitive, non-linear, and unconscious aspects of her own art-making, or what could be called her 'creative process.'  I am a bit fed up with the term 'creative process,' because it has too much airplay for my tastes, but it serves in a pinch.

You see, we wander around, more or less in the darkened gloom, and once in a rare while, we bump into someone or something who confirms that yes, we are wandering in the dark here, and the contact is a genuine cause for celebration, because isn't it a kind of miracle that people who cannot see where and why they are going should agree on something?  Here's to agreement on un-knowing, then, I hope?








PS

It's nothing against guys, you know, per se, it's just a teensy bit niggling that I am still unable to persuade by methods of brute force and 'gender superiority' alone and if you think I am being a bit too flip, check the most recent stats:  https://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/

Making lemonade out of coal.

Dear Glad You Asked and Been Meaning to Say,

I am not even remotely over it.  I sometimes don't think about it, but it comes out of nowhere and hits me like a ton of bricks, which I have noticed have little words and phrases stamped into them.  Things like 'well, now what?' and 'futility,' and 'wellerschmertz.'  If I ignore these bricks, more come along, which only proves their wretched little points.  Beware the bricks.

I am going to get a sofa that people can stay in my studio on- overnight.  It's not an easy decision.  Many things will have to be removed, re-located, given away, in order for the space to accommodate a making down of a pallet on the floor.  An artist pines for years to have a dedicated space- a space without a washer and dryer in it, or mice, or a dresser full of clothes, or shovels and hoes.  A place that is only for making.  I set mine up for that, and for reading, but only for reading the 'right' kind of books- theory, and picture books, dictionaries in various languages.  I made shrines to the things I cared for in it- photos of people, birds and animals;  rocks, leaves, dirt, shells, seeds, sticks, and the red powder they use in India.

Still, what use are secret shrines anyway?  Who would be the initiates that might see such sacred spaces?  There is a very nice* bakery in Los Alamos, and the bathroom has a little Joan Didion shrine in it.  And isn't that the right kind of place for a shrine?  A place that people visit?  I think putting people to bed in my shrine-filled studio could be a step in the right direction; although I remain far from certain about the right direction; sharing a space surely cannot be worsening things, can it?












*  Par exemple, they make terrific canelés AND fabulous pretzels.  Imagine mastering both of those, and consider how wonderful the croissants and bread must also be.





PS 
Make a few more pallets....  One, two, three, four, & five.

You know who I am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Ones,

 

I can't seem to cross the street these days without thinking of the song for today.  Let's hold hands, all in a circle, and sing it together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Song for Today

Dear Old Enough to Know,

Gaze a gazely stare at the gayageum, here.  I wonder if we can get one on Ebay?  It might be just the thing for our all girl band.  Although, I think we will need two of them, to get those layers of sound- or a thingummy that can record one track and add it to another.