Thursday, December 31, 2009

passing

.


difficult decade
trouble sweetened with delight
emerging stronger


.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Reading, reading...

Now that the Christmas guests have gone and all is calm, it's back to my inter-quarter recreational reading list. Grisham's Last Juror was first, before company came. Yesterday I just finished E's Things the Grandchildren Should Know, and began Kerouac's Big Sur. In between I am slowly working through Bonaventure's The Soul's Journey Into God. That can't be rushed (even if it is due back Sunday!)

In case there's time left over before Winter Quarter starts, I still have a couple of Grisham novels on loan from G&G's cabin library. No rush to return those - they're off to Florida for the rest of the winter! Those books will keep until Spring Break. :)

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

While it lasts

The foot of snow earlier this week later turned to slush and then it all froze, hard. But during a roughly 6 hour window when there was good packing snow, J1 took advantage and landscaped the front yard. Installation art, I believe it's called. :)



She swears it's a dog, but I think the thing the snow man has on a leash is a polar bear cub, about the size of one of those brown bear footstools at Caribou Coffee.

Hm. That gives me an idea. :)

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Giving Back

...at this season of "getting".

So much of our focus is on what we want for Christmas, and not on what others need, much less how we can meet that need. This year, I even heard one of our family members (just who, I can't recall) make a Freudian slip and refer to what I "ordered" for Christmas instead of what I "asked for" for Christmas. The context was clearly one of something hoped for, but what came out was something ordered. :)

It was both funny and telling - an indication of what Christmas has become in our culture.

So it was good on Boxing Day to go with all the relatives to Feed My Starving Children and pack food boxes for malnourished youth in places like Haiti. Not to mention that it's hard to take oneself too seriously when one is wearing a hairnet. :)


Friday, December 25, 2009

cover

.


come let us reason
though your sins are as scarlet
they'll be white as snow


.





Whenever I see a snowfall like today's, I understand this reference from Isaiah 1:18 very well. Fresh snow covers many things, and not just lights and garland. It covers dead leaves, discarded ashes, animal droppings, brown slush, yellow snow - impurities that insult the eye. There are two kinds of beauty in a snowfall - what it displays... and what it hides. :)

Forgiveness of sins is like that - it both enhances and covers. Christmas reminds us of that dual gift of beauty: what God's Incarnate Grace showed forth... and what It covered over.

Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Decorations

Enough of the posts on pollution. It's Christmas! :)

And the Loring Pasta Bar Tuesday night was festive looking.



And festive sounding, with live music.



They even had the disco ball going. In the men's bathroom!

This is the view directly upwards from the urinal. (don't ask)



I love the bathrooms in this place. So quirky.



Like the rest of the place. :) That's its ambience. Great food, too.



So now we are all battened down and waiting for both the blizzard and the guests to arrive, the first of which guests (besides J1 who got here last week) will be J2 tonight - if his plane from Chicago gets off the tarmac where it currently sits..

Then tomorrow morning the North Carolina bunch comes in. Theoretically. We'll see if the airport is open. In the afternoon a group from Wisconsin arrive. Maybe. They're followed soon by G&G. Ideally. And finally one last brother-in-law trickles in from Utah Friday morning. We hope.

I have a feeling that my snowthrower and I will become best of friends over the next 72 hours. It better work! I need space for 3 cars, plus two in the garage! Yikes!

But for now, it's the last peaceful hours by the tree before the blizzard (and the family) arrive. Not sure which I'm more nervous about! Hmm... in the meantime, pass the um... eggnog.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Efficient Polluters, Part 3: Transportation

"With most men, unbelief in one thing springs
from blind belief in another."
-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

(And yes, I suppose this holds for women, too.)

Seems to me that when it comes to the issue of climate change, the above statement holds, whichever side you're on in the global warming debate. A flat refusal to believe that the other side may have a legitimate position, seems to stem from an ideological certainty that one's cause is just, simply because one has chosen it: "my cause, right or wrong." Being an iNtuitive Thinker myself, according to Myers-Briggs, I get how that works. ;)

But ideology aside, let's move on to the data. While still on our subject of how some countries pollute more "efficiently" than others (with less CO2 produced per unit of GDP), I wondered how transportation patterns affect this. Is there a correlation between the means of transportation used by a country and the economic cost of the CO2 that the country produces?

Yep. Sure enough.

It seems that the number of motor vehicles per capita, when above a certain level, does correlate with GDP/CO2 (negatively), and passenger travel by non-motor-vehicle methods does, too (positively). To wit:

The number of motor vehicles (all sorts, incl. private cars, delivery vans, tractor-trailers, taxis, etc.) per capita doesn't seem to matter, really.. UNTIL a country crosses a threshold of about 1 vehicle per every 2 people. That level probably implies a certain degree of prosperity and infrastructure which makes vehicle traffic effective in "driving" the economy. (yes, haha)

But, as the proliferation of vehicles grows, as a country gets closer to one vehicle per person, there is a definite negative effect. See the chart below:



The USA, by the way, is the right-most point on the chart. It seems obvious to me that the proliferation of motor vehicles has a chilling effect on the use of mass transit, and thus a negative correlation with the economic cost of pollution. We can look at the same idea from another angle.

Let's take the volume of passengers (adjusted to the size of the overall population) traveling by rail or air instead of by motor vehicle. The data suggest there is a clear benefit to the use of rail and air travel in terms of effective economic use of polluting activity. Interestingly, air travel had a strong correlation by itself, as did rail by itself, almost equally as strong. However, the slope of the line was steeper for rail (by about 50%) implying 50% more bang-for-the-buck in rail travel. This seems to be a clear candidate for funding when choosing among environmentally-friendly development projects.



A couple of interesting asides:

1) the method of freight hauling didn't seem to be a significant variable in this analysis, other than this: there is a negative correlation with efficiency of pollution when there is an OVER-emphasis on shipping by truck. Rail and air freight didn't see this phenomenon.

2) passenger travel by motor vehicle actually had a nice positive correlation (about as good as rail), but only if it did not exceed a certain level (essentially that of Western Europe & Scandinavia). The USA was a noticeable excessive outlying point, no doubt because of our penchant to drive alone, and long distances at that. Hmm... I wonder if a Vespa counts as a motor vehicle in Europe? :)

3) there is no good transportation data on travel (for freight or passenger) by water. Oh well.

So, summing up this and the last two posts, my simplistic public policy recommendation for the USA is this:

Invest in more electric power generation and better grid infrastructure, with initial emphasis on nuclear (and hydro where possible) as sources, in order to quickly ramp up supply.

Insist upon the same for the "big three" bad-boy countries: India, Russia, China, as well as verifiable emissions testing. Use both carrot and stick if needed.

Invest in both light and high-speed rail for local and regional passenger travel in the continental US. Shift funds away from highway budgets, and raise gas taxes, to do it.

And since no one is going to make us give up our cars in this country, ever... at least convert them to electric, whether by incentive or by law. Just get it done.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Efficient Polluters: what are they doing right?

In the previous post, I talked about distinguishing the "good guy" nations from the "bad guy" nations in terms of who got the best economic result from their polluting activities. Another way to say that is: who produces the least amount of pollution for every $MM of economic production?

Using a stat of GDP/CO2 ($MM of Gross Domestic Product divided by metric tons of CO2 emissions), I got a short list of nations that seemed to be doing things right:

Switzerland
Norway
Sweden
France
Denmark
Ireland
Austria

These were several times better than the global average. And a bunch of other countries belonging to the European Union, while not on this short list, were also looking pretty good. Now, we should ask: WHY? What are they doing right?

So, I tackled the obvious first. Since so much of any economy uses electrical power, I wanted to see how that power was generated. Maybe after that, I'll tackle transportation methods. Anyway, using data from Nationmaster.com on the percentage of energy production by source, I looked for correlations between the GDP/CO2 statistic and the source of energy production. The sources available were:

Fossil Fuel
Nuclear
Hydroelectric
Other (Wind/Solar/Geothermal)

It was interesting to note that correlations were not great for any of the non-fossil fuel sources individually, but when you pair them up, there was a definite correlation. The answer is NOT nuclear. Or wind/solar. Or Hydro. No silver bullets, no magic solutions existed. The real answer appears to be "all of the above". The best correlation was to "NON-fossil-fuel" sources combined. And the answer was very similar for the sum of nuclear and hydro. Wind/solar/geothermal has a positive correlation, but a very small one. It doesn't add much "lift". The real mileage is in a combination of nuclear and hydro.

But...

The benefit doesn't become significant until a country passes about the 70% mark of non-fossil-fuel sources for energy production. It's pretty linear, and nearly flat, prior to that. But once you pass 70%, the benefit goes up exponentially. See the following graph:



For point of reference, the USA has less than 30% of its energy coming from nuclear and hydro combined. That, I think, is what makes us a pretty mediocre "polluter" when it comes to efficiency. And we have a looooong way to go to get into the elite class of countries who "fuel" their economy wisely.

It seems that the best place to put scarce investment resources in the short run, to solve the immediate crisis, is into hydroelectric or nuclear power generation facilities. This should be done with a goal in mind to crank up electrical power as much as possible, make it cheap, and convert to electric vehicles ASAP. Wind and solar may be attractive, but statistically they don't appear to give nearly the lift as do nuclear and hydro power.

The faster we can ramp up nukes and dams to produce it, grid infrastructure to distribute it, and vehicles to use it, the better chance we have of solving the problem. Wind and solar... back burner. The problem with this, of course, is in the developing countries. Nuclear power is interesting to them for other reasons, not all of which are... friendly. :(

But that threshold is already crossed in terms of the biggest "bad boy" countries: Russia, China, India. They all have nuclear weapons. So encouraging them (even economically) to do more nuclear power and hydroelectric power is not a national security issue. No need to wait!

Let's go forward! More dams, more nuke plants, a better grid, more electric cars. That's the ticket.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Efficient polluters should be rewarded, inefficient ones penalized

Yo, Copenhagen delegates: listen up! I got this one covered.

With the climate change conference stalling out this week, I thought I'd give the confused and demoralized world leaders a hand here.

There's a simple, straightforward way to separate the sheep from the goats in terms of polluters. Everyone pollutes; all countries do. But who are the "good guys" whom we should emulate, and who are the "bad guys" whom we should scold?

I figured it out last night with a little help from nationmaster.com, which is advertised as a statistician's dream, and yes, is a pretty cool little website for a guy like me who does this kind of stuff for fun. :)

Okay, we all know that the USA is the biggest polluter in the world (in terms of CO2 emissions), right? Right. But - the USA also has the biggest economy in the world (in terms of GDP), right? Also right.
So, doesn't that let us off the hook? Maybe, maybe not.

To check, let's try to "scale" a country's pollution in terms of the size of the economy that drives it. Let's ratio pollution levels to economic levels, and then see if the USA is a "good guy", or not. To do this, I made up a new stat: GDP ($MM) divided by CO2 (metric tons), or GDP/CO2 for short. The world average happens to be $2,000,000 of Gross Domestic Product per every metric ton of CO2 emissions. That's the whole world we're talking about, now.

But, you say, doesn't the USA dominate the world in terms of economy? Well... no. It's the largest, yes: 27.2% of the world's GDP, to be precise. But in economics, when they teach you about market concentration, it's really not unusual for the largest player in a given market to own about a quarter of it. 27% is hardly monopoly status: it's a big economic world out there!

Well, you ask, if the USA doesn't dominate the world economically, surely it does from a pollution standpoint. Um.. no. It produces 25.2% of the world's CO2 emissions, so pretty close to its share of the world economy. The USA gets a little more "lift" from its pollution than the world in total, but not much. $2.3MM per ton vs. $2.0MM. Yawn. The USA is pretty average as polluters go, in terms of economic activity gained by polluting.

Okay, then, so who are the winners? Which polluting countries get the most economic benefit from their polluting activity? Put another way, who are the most efficient polluters? (if you invert the statistic, make it CO2/GDP, what you get is the tons of pollution per million of GDP, or pollution generated per dollar. Smaller is better - less pollution per dollar is good. Just like larger is better for the GDP/CO2 stat.)

As with any large statistical analysis, there are outliers - data points that are on the fringe with no good explanation for why they're there. The top 5 countries in the world in terms of GDP/CO2 are: Chad, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo, and Mali. Go figure. And it's not like third-world countries are all "good guys", either. Some of the worst in the world are: Suriname, Nauru, Guyana, Mongolia and Zimbabwe. And the presence of US troops also doesn't seem to matter: Afghanistan is #6 in the world, and Iraq is #178.

Instead of looking at the fringe, let's look instead at the some of the "deciders", who are sitting on their collective thumbs in Copenhagen. How about a comparison among the G20 countries, the 20 largest economies in the world? Are they all monolithically average? Or are there "good guys" and "bad guys" in the group? Maybe we'll widen the sample some; say the top 50 economies (which account for over 90% of the world's economy. FYI, this includes Hungary, but not Egypt.)
What do we find?

Here are the standouts:

Good Guys

Switzerland
Norway
Sweden
France
Denmark (guess Copenhagen was a good place to meet!)
Ireland
Austria

These countries had GDP/CO2 stats ranging from 2-3.5 TIMES as good as the world average. And while not all making the top seven large economies, most of the European Union is better than average. What's with the Nordics, especially? What are they doing right? That's my next step - phase 2 of the analysis. I'll keep the world posted. :)



Bad Guys
(at least one of which refused to sign the treaty or allow for verification - hm, wonder why?)

Russia
China
India
South Africa
Poland
Saudi Arabia
Czech Republic

These countries had GDP/CO2 stats ranging from less than half to only 30% of the world average. The top three on this list (combined) emit more CO2 than the USA, and have a lot less to show for it. They especially need to get slapped silly. But who's gonna do it? Jane & Joe Average in the USA? Barack and Michelle? Doubt it.

Last time I checked, the worst three on this list all have nuclear weapons, and one even sits on the UN Security Council. So it's pretty hard to tell them what to do. But given their level of pollution, until these countries develop a social conscience, the problem will NOT get solved, whether the USA becomes a better world citizen of not.

It's time to face the obvious. It's important for the USA to be responsible, and be among the best in the world at this (and we're not). But that alone will not do the job for the world at large. The bad boys - Russia, China, India - need to shape up and get serious, show committment and transparency, or the climate fight is lost.

That is, if you actually want to fight that battle. If you do, climate control in the USA is not the answer. Emissions in Russia, China and India are the real problem. If the world can get them (and yes, us too) to look like Scandinavia, then we've got it licked.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Obama's Nobel war speech

All three of my favorite columnists have written this week about Obama's speech in Oslo. This column by David Brooks (NY Times) is right on the money comparing the current president's view of human nature to that of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr's. It's essentially that of St. Paul, who saw a constant struggle between good and evil in the human heart (or in Paul's words, the flesh and the Spirit). They are at war with each other, and whichever one we help usually wins out. I'll leave to the article to explain Brooks' application of all that to Obama's view of war.

The other two columnists I follow regularly are David Broder (Washington Post) and Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal). They, like Brooks, understand human nature, as well as have a sense of history. When I read all three of these columns, I get a pretty balanced view of the news of the day. With Peggy on the right and the two Davids on the left, it's well-covered.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

festive

.


seasonal décor
holidays past and present
very christmas-y


.

:)

Monday, December 14, 2009

break

.


coursework completed
recreational reading
nothing else will do


.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Pills, penance, and papers

Saturday was a draining day, and a restorative one, from multiple perspectives: the health of my body, the health of my soul, and the health of my grades!

The head cold that had been plaguing me finally released its grip on my head a little bit, enough that I could breathe freely now and then, and even think occasionally. Combining Zicam and two different antihistamines (with the permission of "experts" on the internet), finally checked the sneezing and watery eyes enough that I could function, at least minimally.

So, I bundled up in the morning and headed to St. Rose's for one of their Communal Penance services. They typically have a couple of them near both Christmas and Easter. It had been awhile, and it was time for me to go. The Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession, Absolution & Penance) is sort of like the process of blowing and coughing out the crud in my nose and chest, hearing the doctor say "good, a productive cough there!", plus taking some medicine to help. The soul needs that purgative/restorative regimen from time to time.

Nice picture, huh? ;) I wonder if priests hearing confessions ever feel like they want to go shower afterwards?

There is no corporate absolution anymore, all confessions are individual, but they lined up multiple priests for us to expedite the process, and scattered them around the sanctuary for privacy. You took your turn with whomever was open when you got to the front of the line. I drew a thirty-something bald-as-an-egg black priest with a heavy Caribbean accent - boy, did he have some good insights for me. Just what I needed as help.

The individual confessions are normal, I guess... if such a thing is ever routine. But I do love the imagery in the way they do this corporately at St. Rose. You come in and sit in one section of the pews, with all the other "sinners". We all, including the priests, sing, pray and recite a confession together, then scatter to our individual sessions. As we each finish, though, we all go and sit in a section of the sanctuary completely opposite the first, where all the "forgiven" sit. :) I love that part. And my soul does feel healthier today. There was a freedom in worship this morning that I had missed lately.

After that, it was pound, pound, pound away at the keyboard trying to come up with 3,750 words on my philosophy of evangelism and discipleship - for the final paper of the Fall Quarter, due this week. Argh. This was one of the tougher papers I've ever had to write, mostly because I have no passion connected to the topic. And so it was draining to get through it, but felt so refreshing when I had something that passed muster and I could upload it to the class website.

Done! Done with illness, done with confession of sin, done with schoolwork. All draining... and all restorative, when finally past.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Blizzard!

Well, sort of. It may have caused a state of emergency in Central Wisconsin, but around here it was just a good old winter storm, complete with blowing/drifting and a bitter cold wind behind it.



So, with a driveway to blow out, it was a lousy time for an out-of-nowhere head cold. Sneeze, drip, cough. :(

And with the cold wind bearing down on us, I began to panic about the dog sleeping in his kennel in the uninsulated attached garage. So this week, he got new bedding (thick and warm) for the kennel, and a new jacket (sort of like a barn coat for a horse).



Dog jammies! :)

It's a good brand (Woolrich), has Thinsulate for filling, a leash ring on the top, and a zip pocket on the side (for treats, I suppose. He hasn't learned how to work the zipper with his teeth yet..)

Just 20 bucks - at Target, no less. Who would have thought it? So sleep outside, dogface; my conscience is clear. You're dressed for it.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Sleep therapy

I must be tired. Tired of classwork, maybe.

The weirdest thing happened on Sunday afternoon. I had finished an 8-page paper the night before, and was beginning the final week of Fall Quarter, with one book to read and a 15-page paper to write in the next seven days. So I thought I'd get a head start by trying to read the first third of the book on Sunday afternoon, maybe more if I could manage it.

Since any pro football I might have had an interest in watching was scheduled for evening games that week, I had the afternoon free. So after church, I work out at the gym, cool off, have some soup, then bundle up, grab the book, and head to Caribou Coffee for the duration. Good plan, right?

The place is packed with people, soloing or in small groups, and I find a little table and start reading, waiting for my large Breve' with sugar-free caramel to be brewed, as well as for one of the armchairs to open up. About halfway through the Breve', a lady leaves an armchair, and I scurry over and plop into the faux leather, sinking down in and propping my feet up on one of the little Ottoman Bears that roam the place in search of crumbs from biscotti or scones.

Four chapters and a free refill later, I take off my glasses, set down the book and rub my eyes. They sort of need closing, I think. Just for a little bit, while the refill cup cools off. People were talking, music was playing, chairs were scuffing around. The sounds kind of blurred together, and...

An hour and a half later...

I wake up! Except it's completely dark outside, and ... no one's faces are the same! Aaaaahh! What's up with this?

In my semi-groggy state I thought I had switched dimensions into some alternate universe, where day was night, coffee was served cold, and the people were all shapeshifters!

Seriously, it was freaky. For about a minute. And then I started wondering what the customers and staff must have thought. Did the barristas wonder if they should call 911? Did kids sit at the tables and whisper: "hey, look at the old guy over there sleeping, his mouth hanging open. let's go put a coffee bean in it!"

But thankfully, I apparently didn't snore (mouth and nose weren't dry or sore), and no one looked in my direction. Maybe this happens at Caribou all the time, I don't know. But you wouldn't think so, at a place where they trade in legal stimulants.

And the strangest thing is... I never take naps. Even if I try, I can't.

If this happens again, I'm calling the nursing home to book a room.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Syncopated Mass

In the last post, I loosely referred to concerts as music therapy. Well, I actually knew a guy once who was a music therapist by training and certification. He worked with geriatrics at a nursing facility. Or.. maybe it was kids who were learning disabled. I don't know anymore... it was 25 years ago!

But what I can remember is him playing and singing at church. The music (and the mental picture of the guy himself) stuck with me, though the details of where he worked, and even his name, have not. Such is the staying power of effective music.

On Saturday at Mass, it was my turn to lector again. This time I read a section from the prophet Baruch. "The prophet who?", you ask. Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Baruch is one of the apocryphal books along with Wisdom, Enoch, Maccabees, Judith, etc. They don't often pop up in the lectionary readings, and when they do, I am always at a bit of a loss as to what to do with them. :)

I mean, I have read the Bible (the protestant version) cover-to-cover, and most passages multiple times, some even memorized. But I can't yet say the same about the additional books in the Catholic Bible. When I get a familiar passage to read at Mass, I already have a cadence in my head as to how it should be read, you know? But not with Baruch. How do I best communicate this? Where do the gentle and the powerful inflections go, where do I put the pregnant pauses that cry for resolution?

So, I get there early and stand in the sacristy rehearsing while the acolytes and servers scurry around me, mumbling under my breath and gesturing with my right hand. I'm sure it looked funny. But really, everything that's important to communicate needs at least some rehearsal, even if it's to an imaginary version of your audience in the car en route. ;) It's just tough to read from Baruch while trying to turn left on Hamline off of Snelling across two lanes of traffic...

Well, back to music. There are a couple of composers who compose hymns and responses used in the Mass whom I've come to really like: Marty Haugen & Michael Joncas. They do such interesting things with rhythms and syncopation, and their time signatures are often in 2/2 or 3/4, or.. switching back and forth as needed. :) It's challenging sometimes for a guy who doesn't really read music very well. But once I hear the cantor sing it a couple of times, I'm good.

And yeah, this kind of music is therapy, too. So is reading the Word to the assembly of the faithful. Even if it is from "the prophet who?"

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Music Therapy

Okay, so what do all these artists have in common?

Sara Groves,
Gospel Gossip,
Maps Of Norway,
Dragons Power Up!,
Naomi Striemer,
The Bird and the Bee,
Gypsy Mania (2),
Cafe' Accordion Orchestra (2),
Parisota Hot Club,
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (3),
Steven Curtis Chapman,
Sherwood,
The Higher,
Houston Calls,
Lifehouse
Matt Nathanson,
Honey Honey,
Pat Donohue,
Suzy Bogguss,
Matt Pond PA,
Carbon/Silicon,
Eels,
The Swell Season,
Death Cab for Cutie,
Rogue Wave,
Ingrid Michaelson,
Greg Laswell,
Iron & Wine,
Andrew Bird,
The New Pornographers,
Bon Iver,
Cloud Cult,
She & Him,
M. Ward,
Zooey Deschanel,
John Pizzarelli (2),
They Might Be Giants,
Moon Maan,
Neko Case,
Bucky Pizzarelli,
Benny Green,
Stereolab,
Monade,
Beastie Boys,
Tenacious D,
Ben Harper,
Calexico,
Bowerbirds,
Harry Connick, Jr.,
Ben Kweller,
The Watson Twins,
Madeleine Peyroux,
Joe Pug,
Squirrel Nut Zippers,
Chris Tomlin,
Israel Houghton,
Mates of State,
Black Kids,
Steve Tyrell,
Keane,
Meiko,
Taking Back Sunday,
Anberlin,
Envy on the Coast,
Christine Rosholt (2),
Karrin Allyson,
Matisyahu,
Dub Trio,
Old 97's,
Fleet Foxes,
Dungen,
U2,
Snow Patrol,
Owl City
Kate Havnevik,
Over the Rhine,
Vienna Teng,
Relient K,
Copeland,
Barcelona,
Minnesota Boys Choir,
The Great Northern Union Chorus (2),
Asleep at the Wheel,
Straight No Chaser,
Ray LaMontagne,
Jane Monheit

Yup, you guessed it: they've had me in their audience in the last 24 months. :) Granted, often 2-4 of them have been on the same stage in the same evening, but still..

Ever since Dr. Shrink-Wrap prescribed going out to concerts as appropriate therapy for me, I have taken this particular directive of his verrry seriously. And, as I head into the new year, I'm sure I still need help; I really do think more therapy is in order. You see, I think I'm close, reeeeally close, and don't want to stop getting well now, right? Isn't this a small price to pay for emotional health?

And the artists... why, they are practically clamoring to help me out with my well-being. Having me in the audience has become almost as popular as guesting on Sesame Street or SNL. Already booked for emotional assistance gigs for me in 2010 are: Low, Ben Gibbard, Jay Farrar, John Mayer, Michael Franti. And more are jumping on my mental health bandwagon every day! I'm just so popular as an audience member... I think it's because they can see my progress right in front of their eyes.

What else could explain it?

Friday, December 04, 2009

dusting

.


nature's pastry chef
powdered sugar on the lawn
sweet winter morning


.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Waters of March

A stick, a stone
It's the end of the road
It's the rest of a stump
It's a little alone.

It's a sliver of glass
It is life, it's the sun
It is night, it is death
It's a trap, it's a gun.

The oak when it blooms,
A fox in the brush
A knot in the wood
The song of a thrush
The wood of the wind
The cliff, a fall
A scratch, a lump
It is nothing at all.

It's the wind blowing free
It's the end of the slope
It's a beam, it's a void
It's a hunch, it's a hope

And the riverbank talks
Of the waters of March;
It's the end of the strain
It's the joy in your heart.

The foot, the ground
The flesh and the bone
The beat of the road
A slingshot stone
A fish, a flash
A silvery glow.

A fight, a bet
The range of a bow.
The bed of the well,
The end of the line,
The dismay in the face.
It's a loss, it's a find.

A spear, a spike
A point, a nail,
A drip, a drop
The end of the tale.
A truckload of bricks
In the soft morning light,
It's the shot of the gun
In the dead of the night.

A mile, a must
A thrust, a bump
It's a girl, it's a rhyme
It's a cold, it's the mumps.
The plan of the house.
The body in bed.
And the car that got stuck.
It's the mud, it's the mud.

A float, a drift
A flight, a wing
A hawk, a quail
The promise of spring

And the riverbank talks
Of the waters of March
It's the joy in your heart
It's the joy in your heart.

A snake, a stick
It is John, it is Joe
It's a thorn in your hand
Or a cut on your toe,
A point, a grain
A bee, a bite
A blink, a buzzard
A sudden stroke of night.

A pin, a needle
A sting, a pain
A snail, a wasp
A riddle, a stain.

A pass in the moutains
A horse and a mule,
In the distance the shelves
Grow three shadows of blue.

And the riverbank talks
Of the waters of March
It's the promise of life
In your heart, in your heart.

A stick, a stone,
The end of the load,
The rest of the stump,
A lonesome road.
A sliver of glass,
A life, the sun,
A night, the death,
The end of the run.

And the riverbank talks
Of the waters of March,
It's the end of all strain,
It's the joy in your heart.
It's the joy in your heart.
It's the joy in your heart.
It's the joy in your heart.



----- as sung by Jane Monheit
(how she manages to remember it all, I can't imagine.)

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Ooooh... Jane.



Rrrrr....

What a voice. The girl is pitch-perfect, has great interval control, and such a natural feel for jazz. If there was a modern-day version of Ella.. it's Jane. :) Her version of "Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" was proof: spot on.




Yum. And I don't mean the Dakota's dessert menu.



Curvy, funny and unpretentious, she seemed very approachable and at ease in an intimate club. The only distraction was that her hair seemed to be bothering her - she had her hands in it all night, pulling strays off her face, etc. She had certain other mannerisms that I swear I've seen before. The way she would say something dead serious when you knew she didn't mean it, arch one eyebrow, shrug lightly, then stick out a pouty lower lip in faux hurt if you didn't believe her.
I know that look, but darned if I ... hm.

Talking with her afterwards at the merch table where she was signing CDs (incl. mine), she was self-effacing and pleasant, reluctantly admitting to perfect pitch (I thought so).



The Dakota was its usual ideal venue for small-combo jazz. Jane's band (piano, upright bass, drums) was solid, and played off her well. And because we went to the early show, we even got home at a reasonable hour! Jane's performance was a nice mixture of everything from Christmas music to Portuguese bossa-nova to Hoagy Carmichael. She closed the show with a medley of "Rainbow Connection" and "Over The Rainbow" that was just perfect.

May I repeat: yum. :)
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