Month: February 2024

The Affair of the Crystal Flute

I saw this lovely video of pop star Lizzo playing James Madison’s crystal flute and a reference to the “controversy,” which had somehow escape my notice over the 17 months since this happened.

Out of curiosity — “What had I just witnessed that could cause controversy?” — I turned to DuckDuckGo and found a dozen headlines when I searched “Lizzo James Madison flute controversy.” They were all variations on “Lizzo plays Madison flute and Republicans (or ‘the far-right’) freak out.”

None of the headlines explained why anyone would be offended by Lizzo’s lovely playing, and so I was forced to click further to see who exploded and why. The article I glanced at cited a couple of commentators and organizations I never heard of, who seemed to think the historical flute had been desecrated being played by a famous pop star, who played it very well and respectfully, I might add.

Like Taylor Swift’s politics before her, I had never heard of Lizzo’s crystal flute encounter, nor had I known anyone to freak out over it, and I do find myself running in what could be called far-right circles at times. But it is an election year, and so it’s fashionable right now to mock someone for political reasons, even for imaginary or exaggerated political reasons.

Am I the only one tired of the people who go out of their way to act as if they are offended by something, usually by something said or done by someone with a different political agenda? The only thing more annoying is people who mock everyone with a different political agenda because a handful of those adversaries are offended. As I have always said, I have enough on my plate explaining what I do believe without being accused of believing something I don’t.

Oh, crap, I just continued the cycle, writing about something that offends me.

Look. Can’t we all just get along? We have more in common than differences, and I think the vast majority think Lizzo played that flute lovingly and respectfully, and an even vaster majority didn’t even think about politics when they heard her, except maybe those headline writers.

What I learned from all this:

• France gifted President Madison with a precious crystal flute to commemorate his second inauguration.

• Lizzo, whom I had dismissed as one of today’s random pop stars, turns out to be a classically trained flautist who, offered the opportunity during a visit to the Library of Congress, made Madison’s flute sing beautifully.

• The Church of the Perpetually Offended gains more converts every day, especially as the election season progresses.

Let’s all chill.

O ho, a metaphor

OK, words.

Show me what you’ve got.

Soar. and dig. and dwell. and flee.

Run through fields of echinacea

like you always do, but

then veer into new territory.

Surprise me.

Don’t be verdant for the sake of verdant

when green will do,

and, oh, do I miss that green in

the dying days of February.

Past experience promises spring

and perhaps sooner this year than later.

So: Green and flowers and fresh spring air

today, words? No industrial clangs

or down-shifting semi trucks?

I can take that. I see a butterfly

in the proverbial mind’s eye

and birds peck at the feeder on the deck —

O ho, a metaphor —

the dormant outdoors anxious for spring

as I sit inside

reaching for the words

at the expectant end

of the endless cycle.

Thank you, words. Well played.  

Change the culture

I don’t need to turn on the TV news. Here’s what I’ll find out.

Someone will have died. A politician will have said something unpleasant about another politician. There will be warnings of dire consequences if yet another politician gains or loses power. A grand scheme will be presented to solve a great problem that will never be solved because it would settle the politicians’ argument, and they so love to argue. Today’s weather will be lovely, but don’t worry, there’s a storm brewing. And, oh yes, people are still dutifully killing and maiming each other in far-off lands.

I don’t need the details. The basics never change.

“Turn off the TV?” you ask. “That’s your solution — just shut your eyes to the madness and hope it goes away?”

Well, no. Not exactly.

Let’s say the solution to fear is knowledge. The solution to politics is kindness. The solution to war is peace. The solution to death is life.

The solution to a culture of death is a culture of life. The solution to a culture of fear is a culture of knowledge. The solution to a culture of politics is a culture of kindness and understanding. The solution to a culture of war is a culture of peace.

Instead of turning on the TV news, practice the solutions.

On the verge

Is today the day? Is this when purpose falls out of the sky from the mouth of God to declare what your life has been all about and what shall happen next?

Or is purpose an ongoing evolution, and the needs of this moment define what needs to be done? Is it about a big picture or a momentary picture?

What if it’s all the same? 

What if by the fruit of the Spirit, moment by moment, we paint the biggest picture of them all?

Hootie’s bizarre omission

I was very, very late to the CD revolution. I bought my albums on vinyl for as long as I could, well into the 1980s, and when LPs disappeared from the stores, I took a deep breath and started  buying cassettes if I really wanted an album.

That’s how I first heard Hootie and the Blowfish’s immortal Cracked Rear View in 1994. From the jangling opening guitars of “Hannah Jane” to the mournful a cappella verse of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” the album is darn near perfect.

It was shortly after that when I discovered vinyl had not disappeared completely off the face of the earth. I found a nearby store that had a small cache of LPs for sale. I spent $96 I didn’t really have in my first visit — this was when LPs were still in the $15-$20 range — and I went back fairly frequently. 

Cracked Rear View was one of the first purchases of my renewed vinyl hobby. I was not disappointed — until the very end. I have never been able to explain why, but there’s just something in the sound of a vinyl record, a presence of some sort, that is lacking in other formats.

So when the mournful sounds of “Goodbye” faded, I was very, very content and waited for Darius Rucker to sing the final, hidden track. And waited. And waited. And waited.

The vinyl version of Cracked Rear View does not have the final, a cappella verse of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” “Goodbye” is goodbye. I was extremely disappointed, but heck, it’s 53 seconds long. I could live without it, although its absence makes the album slightly less than darn near perfect.

In the late 1990s, I discovered that the prices of vinyl records had skyrocketed on eBay, and I did a little profit-taking. The most remarkable profit I made was on Linda Perhacs’ magnificent album Parallelograms, which I purchased in the early 1970s for 99 cents out of a remainder bin and sold on eBay 30 years later for $165. Those early 1990s albums were going for two and three times their original price, and so I parted ways with Hootie’s wonderful debut.

After awhile I realized it hurt not to have some of those albums anymore, especially after I finally invested in a fine Audio-Technica turntable, and in the meantime vinyl has made a respectable comeback. During my last visit to Target, I snapped a photo of their vinyl aisle and posted it on Facebook, saying “I feel somewhat vindicated. Target’s LP section is now bigger than its CD and DVD sections combined.”

After I posted it, I noticed something I had not noticed in person — one of the albums on the shelf was Cracked Rear View. I was back at Target the next day.

As I listened contentedly through the album, I thought to myself, “Surely in 30 years, they’ve rectified the mistake and put ‘Motherless Child’ at the end of the vinyl edition.”

No, they have not.

I did a casual online search or two, but I have never found an explanation why vinyl lovers can’t have the whole album complete with the hidden track. My album cover indicates it’s a 2017 reissue, and I know there’s a 2019 remaster, so maybe they fixed it then. Maybe I’ll find out someday.

It the meantime, it’s just one of life’s little mysteries.

When they come in peace

2001: A Space Odyssey • Close Encounters of the Third Kind • E.T. The Extraterrestrial • Contact • Arrival

I love, love, love movies with mysterious aliens who turn out to have our best interests at heart — movies where the “villain” is our human fear of the unknown and the impulse to destroy what we don’t understand.

We need more stories like that.

It Came From Outer Space • The Day The Earth Stood Still • Forbidden Planet

The aliens come in peace, and our instinct is to strike. When our ape ancestor discovers tools in 2001, he goes within seconds from simple work to hunting and then to killing his enemy — the urge to weaponize our discoveries is strong within us, but as we grow we put away childish urges and impulses — don’t we?

I love when the strange and mysterious adversary becomes our best friend, or at least an ally, because we’ve all been strange and mysterious to someone at some time or another in our lives, or we’ve taken a chance to be nice to a mysterious stranger or newcomer who ends up being our best friend for life.

If we dig deep enough, we almost always find that we have more in common than differences. I would rather be the foolish scientist who tries to reason with the alien and gets swatted away than the kid who shoots the benevolent stranger out of fear. Of course, my real preference is to be Elliot helping E.T. get home, or Ellie making small moves on the beach with the image of her father, or Roy Neary signing up to fly into space, or Louise Banks figuring out what Abbott and Costello have been trying to say.

It makes more sense to believe the aliens come in peace, because we come in peace every day in almost every interaction with others.

My kind of woman

Photo © Diana Eller | Dreamstime.com

I had heard good things about Sue Grafton’s mystery novels for years. Grafton wrote 25 novels about private investigator Kinsey Milhone, one for each letter of the alphabet except Z. Sadly she died shortly after Y is for Yesterday was published. 

My record of the books that I’ve read indicates that I listened to the A is for Alibi audiobook in November 2021, but I must not have been that impressed because I didn’t take it any further. In late January of this year, after hearing yet another Grafton recommendation, I decided to give her a try again and picked up B is for Burglar. Maybe this time I’d be hooked.

So, a couple weeks later, I’m listening to D is for Deadbeat. Toward the end of Chapter 12 Kinsey talks about how she was raised by her somewhat eccentric aunt, and she goes into a description of her aunt’s beliefs. I’ve broken them out here for your edification.

The occasion that drew out the description was the theft of Kinsey’s beloved handgun — her aunt, it seems, had taught Kinsey how to use a gun when she was 8.

• Firing a handgun, she felt, would teach me to appreciate both safety and accuracy. It would also help me develop good hand-eye coordination, which she thought was useful. 

• She’d taught me to knit and crochet so that I’d learn patience and an eye for detail. 

• She’d refused to teach me to cook as she felt it was boring and would only make me fat. 

• Cussing was okay around the house, though we were expected to monitor our language in the company of those who might take offense. 

• Exercise was important. Fashion was not. Reading was essential. 

• Two out of three illnesses would cure themselves, said she, so doctors could generally be ignored except in case of accident. On the other hand, there was no excuse for having bad teeth.

• Rule Number One, first and foremost, above and beyond all else, was financial independence. A woman should never, never, never be financially dependent on anyone, especially a man, because the minute you were dependent, you could be abused. Financially dependent persons (the young, the old, the indigent) were inevitably treated badly and had no recourse. A woman should always have recourse. 

• My aunt believed that every woman should develop marketable skills, and the more money she was paid for them the better. Any feminine pursuit that did not have as its ultimate goal increased self-sufficiency could be disregarded. “How to Get Your Man” didn’t even appear on the list.

• When I was in high school, she’d called Home Ec “Home Ick” and applauded when I got a D. She thought it would make more sense if the boys took Home Economics and the girls took Auto Mechanics and Wood Shop. 

After hearing this description in the audiobook, I stopped at the nearest library and checked out D is for Deadbeat to make it easier to copy down the above, which by the way is © 1987 by Sue Grafton.

Why would I do that? Simple. 

I’m in love with Kinsey Milhone’s aunt.