THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
"We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other."-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We got our second Vax this week. We went into this experience with antibodies…and it knocked us for a little loop. I did, however, celebrate by buying tickets to see Los Lobos in Big Sur over Memorial Day Weekend…the first time I bought tickets to a show since Lyle Lovett at the Marin Theater a whole world ago. I have to say….it was exciting. And we even got a killer campsite for the Memorial Day weekend as well. It is time for us to get out of town and DO something and live music with one of the greatest bands in the world in a super intimate beautiful spot is “good doing.”
Last night, feeling mostly recovered from the shot, I actually had a drink out with two friends. Another first since the world came closing in. In fact, it had been so long since I ordered a drink, that I mistakenly ordered a margarita without ice (I said NO ROCKS instead of NO SALT). It came in a martini glass. The waiter said it had never been ordered that way before and took the bartender aback. I gotta get back into the motion of ordering a drink in public.
Happy weekend to you…and yes, still be safe. And practice ordering drinks at home before you venture out!
***One last note: I am newly fixated on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose birthday is this weekend and whose quote is above. A priest in the turn of the last century, he was a Darwinian and as wikipedia discusses: “took part in the discovery of Peking Man. He conceived the vitalist idea of the Omega Point. With Vladimir Vernadsky he developed the concept of the noosphere.” Extraordinary.
When the Cellos Play, the Cows Come Home
I know people who compose music for animals to appreciate. What a crazy…and incredible…hobby. Thanks Barb, for sending me this story.
‘Summer of Soul’ Film Documents Lost Footage From 1969 Music Festival
Jay Babcock showed me this footage back in the 90s at his pad in Los Angeles. It is mind blowing stuff of the highest order. Forget the film….lets just see all of the live footage. Ok…let’s see the film too. It looks great.
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend (I’ve come to talk with you again): MADSAKI Returns to NYC
“This spring, MADSAKI returns to NYC…The show is a culmination of his “own diasporic experiences of both intense alienation and belonging,” as well as an incredible insight into our collective history of the iconic touchstones that have somehow been submerged into our consciousness”
A look back at Jack London’s memorable stay in Eureka
“Over the years, Humboldt County has attracted many notable writers, one of the best-known being novelist Jack London. In the summer and fall of 1911, London set off on an adventurous trip from his Sonoma County home to points north…”
WEEKEND LISTEN Back Country Suite By Mose Allison: Nothing like ending a long week with a suite of laid back, down home cooking ala Mose Allison’s piano tapping. Back Country Blues seeps out bluesy beauty, as smooth as Chet Baker’s voice…as lazy as a summer sunrise on a still morning. And what makes it better: smack dab in the middle is the original version of Young Man Blues…the same one that the Who conquered when they played it live in the early 70s. This record is the antidote to the antidote.
This newsletter is dedicated to my Grandma, Helen Quint, whose birthday is today. Her favorite poem was:
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
