So Much Happens On The Weekend

       . . . .  At the Friday evening start of the weekend, one can learn one is going to Spain for two weeks in March: Madrid, Toledo, Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba and Cadiz.  We are going with another couple, one half of which is the director-son of Arturo O'Farrill's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, which is all about performing, and who is the head of the Board of Arturo O'Ferrillo's Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance, which is all about schools, teaching, training and bringing up young performers, outreach into the communities and the communities that may not know about them or the musics. 

Ha! You didn't think going to Spain was vacation did you?  No, this is prospecting Afro-Latin groups and musicians in Spain, for alliance and performance.  The Board also voted yes to ally with Postmambo Seminars, in order to do Postmambo Gotham next summer.  Thus, as one does, Friday night we went to the best Spanish restaurant in the area to celebrate with dinner and one of the wonderful wines that we don't find anywhere else here, certainly not in the wine stores.

The next day, el Vaquero said he wasn't feeling so good, which is fairly usual for him when waking up.  Yet he researched, chose the itinerary, and booked the flights and purchased the tickets. We did the usual Saturday night of him making pasta while listening to Phil Schaap on WKCR, which began long before Phil died. (WKCR runs the recorded shows Phil made over the decades in the same time slot every week.)

Sunday he felt worse, tested, and o yes, positive for Covid.  I was negative. I called his primary, who fortunately, being Chinese, has his office open on Sundays.  Got a script for Pax called into the pharmacy, which I picked up. He fell asleep for almost the entire afternoon

He took the first Pax dose at dinner time. By 10 - 11 at night, the light fever he had was gone.  By 3 AM Monday, the cough was too.  I finally fell asleep.  Sunday was a nasty day for me, afraid as I've been all along about what will happen if we get covid, particularly since we have no way to isolate in this this tiny apartment. We have to sleep together.  We wear masks, even in bed, particularly in bed.  I keep a big bank of pillows between us so he cannot do what he always does in his sleep turn over and put his arms around me.

Yesterday was nearly normal in behaviors, other than what one doesn't do, being positive, and living with someone positive, even though one is still testing negative.  Which means, of course quarantining. Also we wear masks, both us, in this tiny apartment, which is inconvenient, shall we say.  But then we're not Cubans, who are without electricity, covered with mosquitoes, have no water, no food, and do have covid, malaria and dengue.  Eff my inconvenience and slight discomforts.

Darling B brought us cornbread and left outside the door. Via fone he inquired what we needed, so he could bring it to us. But we don't need anything, not even milk, as I have a stash of Parmalat, and plenty of tea, etc.  El V and B agreed that any army that me as quartermaster would be having a good deal -- Always prepared! they said.  Ha! 

Today he doesn't feel in the least bit sick.  The test is a thin faint orange line. I am again negative.

But whatever. We aren't going anywhere or seeing anyone until at least 5 days after he's negative, and if I continue to test negative, not anywhere for 2-3 days after that, just in case.  I have canceled my dental appointment for next Monday.  Sigh.  But maybe I'll get another one before NO at the start of February.  It was a check-up/cleaning, not for An Issue, thank goodness. We also called the restaurant so our server could be warned.

He has been socializing/musiking a lot in the last weeks, though last week he didn't do anything at all, except Thursday night, he did go out to hear Cuban and New Orleans friends/musicians play.  That's the most likely site of infection, but, of course, one cannot know.

Let's face it -- we both were careless.  We'd been in one our city's brief interregnums of Covid, where the numbers had fallen so far, and hospitalizations were hardly happening for Covid. Then all anyone talked about was children with flu and RSV filling up the hospitals. But if one digged, one learned, which I had learned, there was no part of the city that wasn't classified as 'High or Severe Risk for Covid.' The numbers are alarming -- the governor's been talking about reinstating masks (she won't). The numbers started slowly rising with Comic Con, the Holy Days, so before Thanksgiving they were going rapidly up, and now there's the World Cup -- and next weekend that horror show called Santa Con -- all of these are super spreader situations, year after year. We really should have known better than going to a crowded restaurant where nobody masks except some of the basement Mexican staff.

O, there was something else that happened on Saturday.  Our internet failed.  Turned out it is because our wire from outside has suffered rain damage. It must be replaced, which means getting a time when the building's office will open access to the roof so the provider's technicians can replace it.  In the meantime a temp fix, with new modem.  But we may have to revert as we did until that temp fix to using the provider's outside hotspot, which means no secured internet. 

But let me close with this, which I am finally going to visit, since having the desire to do pricked about age 10, seeing the color plates of it in the set of Lands and Peoples, that went along with the other sets of books, as for Science and so on, that came with the purchase my parents made when I was six of the Books of Knowledge.  One has to reserve tickets months ahead of time, so now is the moment to do that.

Daily Depressions, Reading, Watching

      . . . . Our tiny but sublime vacation was followed immediately by non-stop crises of all kinds, all of them made by those over whom we have no control.  Death was bookended by Hurricane Henri and Hurricane Ida. Ida's hollowed out New Orleans's professional class. With no prospect for the return of power for perhaps months, they left the city.  They have the resources to do so -- Tulane shuts down for 6 weeks, but keeps remote learning going, so the faculty get paid.  You see what I mean?  So in crazy heat and humidity, no power, no a/c, no home, no money, no food, no water -- what do you think will happen to those in New Orleans left behind?  Not a scrap of a FEMA person on the ground has yet been seen.

Though we personally have been spared hurricane crises -- so far, as tonight and tomorrow we get a month's worth of rain wrung from Ida's tattered, passing skirts into our already overflowing reservoirs and saturated earth* -- there are the western wildfires, whose toxin-laden smoke we are not spared. The mid-west is dying of drought, while the Gulf is drowning in flood. The blob that calls itself the responsible media is determined to crucify our President in the name of ... what???? A man in a no-win situation had the guts to let go the wolf's ears (which T Jefferson, referring to slavery, said could not be done -- but then, TJ become quite famous in the South, in Virginia, for his cowardice ....) does so, and some how this is reprehensible, but the Jan 1 insurrectionists are merely mis-understood, and must be forgiven.

Then ... there is covid's Delta variant which relentlessly tsunami's across the country.  In Illinois, Bro says he and his cohorts are calling it the "Unvaccinated Pandemic."  They are not saying this good-naturedly. They are as furious abut this as I am  Then comes more death, not from covid, but from people who can't get treatment due to the Unvaccinated Pandemic taking all the medical resources.  This is not of any personal making on our part, or that of anyone we know.  In the meantime, more voter repression, more war on women's reproductive rights and health. In the meantime too, the non-stop crisis that is Haiti, and now also that of Cuba, keep rolling.

And now, I am staring at the approaching mouth of winter's tunnel, a third cold, dreary winter, pretty much enclosed in this tiny space with one other person.  All we're seeing at the end of this tunnel is more vaccinations, more masks and even more dangerous covid variants. Because of Those Ilks.  Well, even people in my family now believe that is how it is with the rethugs: if They don't get Their way one way, They'll get it by something even crazier, such as killing Their own.  Whatever it takes, They get 'er done. **

So I've not been of much use to anyone outside of what is, again,  a tiny circle of close friends who happen to be physically close by, close enough we can meet informally in one of the neighborhood's small parks.  And I'm good for cooking. We continue to eat very well.  I have a big pot roast in the slow cooker right now, with wine, beef stock, herbs, onion, potatoes, carrots and 'shrooms.  It was a home delivery error on the part of MW's interpretation of what I'd ordered back in the spring. On such a wet day, with night temps for the next 2 - 3 nights going into the 60's and even 60's, it made sense to get it out of the freezer.

~~~~~~~~~

     . . . . Fortunately there is a great deal of good reading, and good watching. Never in my past life could I possibly have imagined there would be an extended period of my in which television would be of the greatest importance! This is the state of reading and watching as of today.

FICTION

Continuing:

Penman, Sharon Kay (1995) When Christ and His Saints Slept.  The workout audio book.  I’m going to re-work my way through the Penman Plantagent series.

~ ~ ~ ~

New:

Walker, Martin (2021) The Coldest Case: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel. The latest, for which I've been waiting since last September.

Walker just won a French literary prize for representation of Southern France and culture to the world.  I have an additional affection for Walker’s series now too.  I introduced these books to Mary F. back in the summer of 2020, and she loved them too.

NON FICTION

Continuing:

Herrin, Judith (2021) Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe. This one I read alone.

Sampson, Fiona (2021) Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I have only a few pages left. I'd have finished it by now but the author is so irritating as she insists on being in the book, and she is not interesting.

Wickham, Chris (2009) The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400 – 1000. El V and I continue this aloud every night before lights out. 

~ ~ ~ ~ 

New:

Beran, Michael Knox (2010) Pathology of the Elites: How the Arrogant Classes Plan to Run Your Life.

Clark, Christopher (2013) The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.

Raven, Catherine (2021) Fox & I: An Uncommon Friendship. 

WATCH

Watch for: Vera, season 11, 1st, every Tuesday – BritBox;  Frankie Drake Mysteries, season 4, 3rd – PBS; Midsomer Murders, season 22, part 2, ? – Acorn; Crooked House (2017 film fr, an Agatha Christie novel), NF – 1st; Lucifer, season 6/final, 10th – NF; Dear White People, season 4/final, 22nd - NF; 

Continuing:

My Life Is Murder, season 2, 3rd through the 10th eps, 1st – Acorn -- sundrenched Sydney, Lucy Lawless.  Nuff Said.

~  ~ ~ ~ ~

New:

King of Boys  (2018) season 1, "The Return of the King"; Netflix Original.  I started this 7 episode series last night.

Made in Nigeria, by Nigerians, located in Lagos. Even in the first episode the show is ‘showing up’ the endless traditional internal conflicts, such as Yoruba vs Igbo.  Complicating things further we have a Nigerian version of protestant evangelical Christianity (a prosperity church, you betcha, with all the prosperity going to the head minister, natch), and so much more.

It opens media res within a prolonged party, dancing to live music. Money is being ‘sprayed’ i.e. the guests are “making it rain” – they are shoving, pouring, sticking, thousands of dollars upon the giver of the party and the musicians, a tradition in the Afro Caribbean as well as West Africa. So right away there’s a lot going on with which I have a certain level of long-time familiarity.

It’s as multi-lingual as Lagos is. The show is mostly English, but Nigerian English as well as the traditional languages of Yoruba and Igbo. Subtitles are provided then. Plus there is the local pidgin, for which the viewer might like to take advantage of closed captioning. The characters who know each other long and respect and like each frequently lapse into pidgin, a Nigerian variant of code switching done among friends, in the same way African Americans do this among each other.  There is this too -- 'King' is a woman.  She's addressed as "Oba" which is a male gendered title in Yoruba.  If one knows this right at the start, a whole lot of information is provided just by that.

Vivid, intense and not the USA at all.

~~~~~~~~~

*   Even as I type now, the rain begins. I hear it spraying against the window panes.

** See "The Density Divide and the Southernification of Rural America: The Old North/South Split Lives on in the Urban/Rural Divide"  by Will Wilkinson. Thanks to Lawyers, Guns & Money for tipping me to it.

. . . . One of the puzzles of the 2016 election, and the catastrophe of the Trump presidency, is how populist white nationalism finally prevailed at a time when Americans, taken altogether, were less racist than ever. This is one of the questions I take up in the “Density Divide.” But I left out one of my favorite answers to this question largely because it’s too speculative and I didn’t have the data to prove it. My hunch is that rural white culture, which was once regionally varied and distinctive, became more uniform by becoming increasingly Southern. I call this the Southernification thesis.

In the "Density Divide", I argued that the key to answering “Why did white ethnonationalism finally work to win the GOP nomination and then the White House when it didn’t even get close to working for Pat Buchanan or Ron Paul?” was that residential self-selection on ethnicity, personality, and education had made lower density parts of the country progressively more homogenously ethnocentric and socially conservative, which finally made it possible to unify and organize rural and exurban whites as a single constituency.

I’m confident that this is correct, as far as it goes. However, I think it’s an incomplete explanation without something like the Southernification thesis. Before it could be successfully organized politically, America’s increasingly ethnocentric non-urban white population needed to be consolidated first through the adoption of a relatively uniform ethnocentric white culture.

What I’m still groping for is solid empirical confirmation that the Southernification of white rural America did happen and, if so, how it happened. Now, I have few doubts that it did happen and is still happening. Indeed, it’s hard to think of better impressionistic evidence than the spread of Confederate flags far from the South into all parts of white rural America. But that doesn’t seem like quite enough.

But let’s suppose that it is enough. How did Southernification happen? I’m going to take this up at length in another, even more speculative, post. But here’s where I would start: When I was a kid, the Atlanta Braves somehow became “America’s Team.” Could it be that the media mogul who married Hanoi Jane took the critical first step in bringing non-urban white America together by beaming sanitized Southern culture into living rooms everywhere? . . . .

This is the most cogent explanation for what has happened that I've seen.  Of course, one doesn't see it in the Blob, which is what Lawyers, Guns & Money have taken to calling the so-called media, made up of people who have gotten whatever it is wrong almost every time, but still keep getting paid big money to keep getting it wrong.

 

. . . . Mary Frey-Osmanski, wife of Steve, retired teacher of French and German, a long-time member of a variety of intersecting sf/f writer circles, a mainstay of the Society of Creative Anachronism's Pennsic communities and wars, left us this morning.

She met every new ordeal the course of the disease added to her struggle with courage and gallantry, and the determination to be dealt with by all as a full, living person, whose dignity was not to be trifled with.

I will miss her.  My heart goes out to her husband and her many friends in the Kingdom of the East.

Vacation, Friends, Delta, Postmambo, NOLA Reconnect, Books, TV, But In The Beginning We EAT!

      . . . . It's been a long time, so much going on, but in the end, IT'S ALL ABOUT AUGUST, which is all about -- 

CORN ON THE COB & HERITAGE TOMATOES!  Am I right or am I right? Reveling and gorging, with the best pots of beans, salads and sausages.  What a month this has been for eating, which has all been done at home, or even the first week, spent  at our Saratoga's friend's house. Delta made sure of that. We were not then and are not not now though, in the least deprived staying away all together from restaurants again.  So much delight in getting our produce and other foods at the Green Markets (and O! the green markets up Saratoga way!), and then, cooking together, as B and S and I did each day, with much lubrication provided by Host S's wine cellar, B's brought-alongs, local beers from the Saratoga Minogue's Beverage Center, and any and all music anyone could possible desire or have a yen to hear.

     Every second of Saratoga was more than splendid, even while asleep. The nights dropped into the 50's.  We slept with windows open.  The air was fresh and good smelling, any time day or night. The weather was just what one wanted for an August NYC getaway.  Then we came home, to roaring surges of Delta, and fearing yet again They will steal Thanksgiving and the rest of the holidays from us.

Back in the City though, and back in our grooves. Every time we think, "Well, maybe we don't need any more Postmambo Movie Nights, or any more NOLA Reconnect events, because people will be going out now -- well, no.  Our Host S provided such a moving tribute to how important these Postmambo activities and events have been for him in the pandemic.  Postmambo and his dog -- his gf lives in another town, and has a full-time job, so he's alone mostly.  Imagine, being up there, snowed in, blizzards howling round these past two winters.  "Some very dark days," he said, and said nothing else.  It was kind of emotional for me to be watching Summer of Soul from Harlem, 1969 (film July 2021), and Leningrad Cowboys (1993, Helsinki) films in company with him, el V and Ben, people who have attended to many music events together over the years, and now doing it only by screen again, thanx to jerkwaddies who won't wear masks or get vaccinated, and watching in the same place Steve is when doing NOLA Reconnect and Postmambo.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

READING

Non-fiction

El V and I continue bedtime read-aloud of Chris Wickham's The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400 – 1000 (2009); I continue for myself with Judith Herrin's Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe (2021), 

both of which go so well with the content in the review of The Selected Letters of Cassiodorus: A Sixth-Century Sourcebook (2020) translated and edited by M. Shane Bjornlie, in the latest London Review of Books.  Cassiodorus -- bridge between Late Antiquity Rome and the following eras of murdrous kinglets, want-to-be emperors, etc.  Also the surviving literature, with emphasis on 'surviving', as it seems the 5th century is where everything changes and transmutes, assisted later by whatever literary focus Charlegmagne's scriptors possessed, thus what was lost. Reading this is far more interesting to me probably, than reading the book itself, as I'm not a Latin scholar.

Fiction

The Germans of antebellum New Orleans, how much have we thought about them?  Of course Germans arrived in New Orleans in the 1830's and 1840's as they did in so many cities here, such as St. Louis, progressive labor and political activists, bringing the information, messages and means of Revolution -- and then fleeing from the failure to overset the crowns and oppressions of Old Europe's old Empires and Kingdoms.  They also brought their arts and culture, as we see here in this astonishing work, The Mysteries of New Orleans by Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein, translated and edited by Steven Rowan (2002).  It was originally serially published in 1854 and 1855, and then unavailable until 'rediscovered' in 1990. Why did it disappear? From the opening paragraph of the "Preface and Acknowledgments":

This edition began as a whim and ended as an obsession.  The memory of Reizenstein and his notorious book was preserved primarily by J. Hanno Delier. [ftn.1] It has long been known that Ludwig von Reizenstein wrote a book about New Orleans which offended the taste of its time and was quickly withdrawn from circulation; more could not be said. It is safe to assume that the book, Die Geheimnisse von New Orleans, remained unread for more than a century until 1990, when I managed to reconstruct almost of it from the microform files of the Louisiana Staats-Zeitung . . . .

We learned of this work via last week's NOLA Reconnect session which focused on the Spanish language newspapers of New Orleans.  However, as the featured scholar of the non-English newspapers of New Orleans's history further informed us, there were others, not just French, which we expect, of course, and Spanish, which still too few people think about, as for some reason the deep Spanish history and roots of New Orleans remains overlooked by American History (particularly by those who have positioned themselves as gatekeepers as what the narrative of US history is supposed to be).  German and Italian were among those publications in other languages.

As this cover art for the 2002 translation informs us, among the culture and traditions the Germans gifted to Victorian USA, is the gothic manner and sensibility.  Not only did that map finely upon New England's (think, Hawthorne), but so obviously, once one's attention is caught, with that of the most 'gothic' city of the nation, New Orleans. Late nineteenth Century New Orleans author, Lafcadio Hearn, with a tessara of backgrounds, wasn't New Orleans's sui generis. 

Three times a week, I am most satisfactorily re-immersed in the first novel of Sharon Kay Penman I had ever read, When Christ and His Saint Slept (1994).  am not re-reading the novel though, I am listening to it.  Be assured, this is a wonderful book to accompany 2 1/2 hour workouts!

This is a lively novel, deeply researched, which makes understandable to a non-scholar how and why the nineteen-year bloody tragedy, known as the Anarchy, descended upon 12th C England and her people after the death of King Henry I. Since I first read When Christ and His Saints Slept, I have learned a very great deal about everything even remotely connected with these years, and not only in England. I confess this has allowed for an even greater pleasure in the narrative, and admiration for Penman.

As is Penman's manner, the women are half of the principal characters, starting with Empress Maud, also named Matilda, daughter of King Henry I, to whom he bequeathed his crown, and Matilda, the queen of the usurping successor, Stephen, Henry’s nephew, and Maud's cousin. In many ways, as Penman shows the succession of back-and-forth battles, the successes and failures on both sides, this is as much a women’s war as it is that of their lords.  As women, they have to fight on multiple fronts, not only battlefields.

The set pieces of terrible violence make the suffering of the average Englander clear, as, per usual, lords and their ladies are spared the worst, except on the battlefield, and even then they can often be ransomed instead of just killed. That this civil war indecisively juttered on for nineteen years, despite so many furious, grim and grisly military encounters, leads the reader to consider, perhaps, most of the protagonists lacked any talent for strategy or for building coalition.  All of the men appear to be more than competent warriors, but as war commanders and statesmen, maybe not?  This includes Empress Maud-Matilda too. We see at each turn that failures emerge out of character defects of all the protagonists. Medieval nobles and royals were the not trustworthy or faithful to anyone, much less their inferiors, despite chivalric pretense, which was viewed as weakness if / when a figure practiced such behavior outside romances.

The blood of William the Bastard runs fast and thick in the veins of all the protagonists, that wild, fierce, cruel, violent and stubborn heritage, that cannot brook any thwarting of their will from any quarter, that will never compromise or negotiate. With Henry II’s coronation, Henry I’s grandson, and an Angevin – Plantagenet as well, this was the blood that would rule England and remained convinced for centuries their divine right to rule France as well. The more I read along in this novel, the more I see the same kinds of arrogant treachery and punishment, such as a willingness to use starvation and destruction as weapons upon one’s own people England that the Normans wreaked upon the English in the years and decades after Hastings – the plundering, and the theft too. The English did the same in France in the 14th Century during the Hundred Years War. Plantagenets Edward III and his son, the Black Prince, are historically (in?)famous for what came to be called chevauchée, but that sort of warfare was not by any means a new addition to tactics and armaments. It took until the 15th century before that Plantagenet blood was replaced in England’s royalty – though the desire to rule France as well continued through the 16th Century, with or without blood heritage of the Bastard and the Angevins.

One inevitably considers: if in 1066, Harold and his army hadn’t been so exhausted at Hastings, having just fought and won a previous hard pressed bloody battle against the Danes hundreds of miles away, from which they force marched immediately back south to take on the Bastard, mayhap England might have remained firmly within the North Sea and Scandinavian sphere of influence, and not have gotten pulled into those of France and Europe. How much blood and treasure England would have been spared, perhaps, if that hadn't happened. Yes, that would be a big alternate history, That Penman did not write alternate history, but did her best to bring us in a readable narrative what we think we know, I am deeply grateful.

RED LETTER DAY!

    . . .  How about that? I was sent a reminder this AM for my 11:30 vaccination appointment. The appointment was only made last night.  Getting my first shot a year after the pandemic shut us down – well technically tomorrow will be a year exactly. Biden’s addressing the nation at this marker.

Getting vaccinated only a year into a global pandemic, after 4 frackin' years of the Monster Previous working every day to kill us even before the pandemic, is a miracle, really.  But this lost time feels far longer, like, well, forever, which still has me socially stuck in shut-down torpor.  How will I be able to act after that’s not as necessary as it has been, due, literally, to life vs. death?  For one thing, maybe we can plan our promised Thanksgiving in the spring with Steve in Saratoga as in November we all realized it was not anything we should be doing. 

I can hardly believe it is only a year .... it feels like a massive time dislocation.  Will I ever be able to behave normally in a group of people again? I wonder ....

However. whatever, today is a BEAUTIFUL day, in every way, including weather-wise: 67°, sun shining.  Perfect.  If I stay in the sun, a short-sleeved t-shirt is adequate.  The market's up again.  That first endless super-long NOLA Reconnect 2 last weekend was successful, and the shorter weekend coming right up is in good shape.  Yesterday el V got his first shot (Pfizer) at a Walgreen's-Duane Read right over there on W 4th and Broadway.  I got my first one (Moderna) this morning over here, across Broadway, on the Lower East Side.  We both have scheduled appointments for the second ones, his on April 7th and mine April 9th.  So we're even pretty much in synch.

It sure didn't look like that was going to happen.  El V had gotten his appointment at the pharmacy, but the only thing we had found for me was at the Javits Center at the end of April. Also yesterday a whole more categories of people were declared eligible for vaccination -- including at least, FINALLY, thank goodness, front line public workers like those in supermarkets.  We got the JC appointment almost exactly at the moment 40,000 new appointments were opened.  By the time we got me through the process, about ten minutes, the number of appointments was down to less than 10,000 and they were for May. 

But some friends were determined that el V and I should not be that out of synch, and with el V, after dinner they just punched and punched the keyboards and the phones, and at 9 PM Dear Wonderful Treasure Beyond Price amigo, podster, biz partner and neighbor-across-the-street called me to double check my info.  He'd gotten through to the place where he'd gotten his vaccinations.  And just like that my life changed.  How would we ever get through all this without our friends?  In so many ways, doing so many different things.  And most of all, being there, staying there.

The community center where I got the vaccination was a billion times better experience than the pharmacy where el V got his -- which took forever.  Nor has the pharmacy yet sent him confirmation for his second appointment -- and somehow had never gotten around to doing it for the first.  We got to Essex St. this morning about 20 minutes ahead of my appointment and they sent me right on through.  It was so very very organized.  One felt happy and safe. The 15 minutes waiting to see if I'd have a reaction was spent setting up my second dose appointment. The second appointment confirmation was in my email when I got home.

I am so grateful to Our President Biden.  If Monster Previous was running things I'd probably not get a vaccination appointment until next year -- if ever! 

Yesterday was great too, with the passing of the Stim Bill and Garland's confirmation.  But I was having a hard time feeling it, as depressed as I was at the prospect of nearly 7 more weeks of this before I could even fantasize about something different. I cannot express the relief getting the first dose is.  And now B, S, el V and I can begin planning our Thanksgiving for April, the one we understood we couldn't do in November. That was our promise to each other then -- Thanksgiving in the spring.

By the way Postmambo/NOLA Reconnect's Saturday night in Port-au-Prince and the Hotel Oloffson were literally awesome.  Richard Morse, the bandleader of Ram, had flown home to Haiti for the pre-records and video in Port-au-Prince, and then came back to the house in Maine that has been in his dad's side of the family for generations.  Saturday was freezing up there in Maine, as well as down here.  Like Vermont, Maine is not very wi-fied.  So, after the music events, Richard sat in his SUV in a high school parking lot with his devices for hours talking to people via Zoom on the wi-fi connection there.  People were just melting all over from the experience.  They didn't want to let him get back to his warm house, they loved it so much. We didn't get into bed here either until after 2 AM.

A 2nd by the way -- there isn't covid in Haiti, for reasons that remain mysterious.  Haiti has loads of terrible problems right now, from the volatility and violence imposed upon people who want that toxic, corrupt, murderous so-called president installed by Hillary (and Obma) to stand down, but he refuses to accept losing the election.  But there is no social distancing, there are plenty of live concerts, where the people lose themselves for a while in happiness.

I cannot express the huge difference in how I feel today from how I felt previously.  Before this appointment showed up about 9 PM last night, I had fallen into the kind of depression I haven't felt since the year everybody died: my baby sister, one of my dearest friends and both of my parents.  It had been creeping on since December, but accelerated in February. Worse, the damaged sciatic nerve kicked back into major pain last week too, probably due to the cold.  Maybe now I can recover the energy necessary to begin re-arranging life that is a little more open than it has been for 12 months.

First things I’ll be doing once the time protocol post the second shot has passed is start buying groceries myself again, and do a big shopping at the CVS (masked, OF COURSE!)  – and find a new dish drainer and new pot holders somewhere. Then have a drink with K & C & B & el V, outdoors, in the sunshine.

Then we'll have Thanksgiving.

Weather, Inclement and Cold, Over-Busy Days, Ill Friends, Getting Through With History and Historical Fiction

      . . . . Subject line says it all, and I'd make book this subject line applies to a vast swathe of us across the globe.  The big difference between and much of the vast swathe, is that, tiny, cramped as it is, is snug, and filled with comforts. 

I don't know about others, but the relentless, graphic violence and jeopardy of children, women, and all others who are regarded as the rightful prey offering of the entertainment industries, as well as the entertainment industries' relentless offering of file criminals as identification protagonists has flattened my brain into idiocy, when not rousing me to desire to commit violence on them. 

Happily, there is an antidote that brings us heroism and the projection of loyalty, sacrifice, true friendship and virtues to the fore, while providing good escape action adventure into the past.  The Overdrive- Libby historical fiction series, Duke Classics, has put these novels up on the public libraries that subscribe to Overdrive - Libbey.  These a novels that our great-grandparents and grandparents likely were familiar with, and maybe, like me, stumbled into on their shelves, in their basements and attics, but are hard to find these days, particularly in the libraries.

But one day, titles I've always wanted to try but never came across, such as Joan of Naples by Alexander Dumas, jumped out at me.  This is the 14th Century Queen of Naples (at the top of my list of favorite queens), who was a patron of Boccaccio, a good friend with Pope Clement -- during the Black Death, no less -- and who managed to keep her throne for decades despite so many trying to take it from her (ultimately they were successful, but it took them until she was old).   One can always count on Dumas to have written at some point (or had his factory do it) a novel dealing with a figure of French history about which one is curious.  As you can see from a Dumas era illustration the story of Joan of Naples is filled with action:

This is how one of her husbands met his end, supposedly.

One can access a medieval Romance, such as The Young Lovell, by Ford Maddox Ford. 

 Ford's Parade's End which might familiar from the BBC-PBS 2012 tv series featuring Benedict Cumberbatch)  and some of his other fiction are considered ground-breaking, like Henry James works, as moving the novel into the modern age.  But Ford wrote for nearly 40 years, and most of his work was not that.

As this particular Overdrive program was developed for university libraries, so today's few brave lit students could find such works for their research, classic authors such as an Elizabeth Gaskell, who usually only have a couple of titles available to a general audience, have their full bibliographies accessible.  Mary Gaskell wrote for money, so she wrote a lot of books, not just her hagiography of Charlotte Bronte,  North and South, Wives and Daughters and Cranford -- the last three BBC productions too.

The works of authors truly obscure authors these days, even to literature students perhaps, such as George Payne Rainsford James are also here.

 I have taken additional cheer from the vivid red and white of roses, the gold-trimmed champagne glasses, and bouffants of chocolate ads running on every online site for Valentine's Days.

We're playing lots of Mardi Gras music in the apartment, not only because our first events of NOLA Reconnect 2: Continuing Stories are coming right up, but because -- hey, Mardi Gras is comin' babee, and is nearly here, as of tomorrow.  This too has been cheery, and does wonderful work taking us out of the mundanity of the ice, illness (some with covid-19, some with other issues, and some with both).  

In between, hey I think a lot about George Washington -- Presidents Day -- that figure who remains an historic enigma. Was he really a terrible battle commander but a brilliantly astute political operator?  Was he real a dull mind that never read a book but possessed an intellectual organ that recognized what matters mattered when others couldn't even read the room?

So, among the museum presentation (Black History Month you know), other engagements, NOLA Reconnect, cooking cooking cooking and all that entails, etc. the hour of 8 PM is so welcome.  A couple of hours for tv and books! 

A storm, mostly freezing rain, rolling in.  Another storm Thursday, though this one is mostly snow, They say.  We've already had about three storms I think, in the last 8 days or so -- my sense of time is fairly weird these frigid days and nights, w/o any above freezing temperatures to punctuate.

I tell myself, "Get through this week, and things will get better, at least weather wise!" It's easier to keep that thought in mind because on Saturday, in France, two very elegant, lovely friends got married.  We couldn't be there, but they sent us photos.  O they are beautiful people inside, and so they are beautiful outside too.

 As for last week's tv, it was compelling, with some brilliant, brilliant characters -- particularly female characters -- and presentation.  However, I will confess that, while it was expected, the final episode was, honestly, disappointing.  It seems over 60% of we US voters feel the same about it.  Maybe next season we'll get our druthers?

If Cats Had Wings

      . . . . Owls are perhaps my favorite birds, all kinds of owls, and most particularly the plain old barn owl.  I grew up with barn owls. Pairs of them did nest and raise their young in our classic red barn.  The barn itself, full of cattle feed, was a good place to live, because the grain attracted owl's kind of food.  This was the same reason. beyond shelter from the weather, fox and neighbors' dogs, our farm yard cats lived and raised their kittens in the barn. All around the farm yard were granaries and corn cribs, the big garden, and grain fields, all attracting everything from mourning doves, gophers, rabbits, pheasants and mice. A good place to be an owl or a cat.

There's a part of me still, which wishes to adhere to my childhood conviction that owls were cats with wings.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Owl

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;

Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof

Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest

Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,

Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.

All of the night was quite barred out except

An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,

No merry note, nor cause of merriment,

But one telling me plain what I escaped

And others could not, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,

Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice

Speaking for all who lay under the stars,

Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

                   ---- Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

~~~~~~~~~~~

A perfect day for a walk.  It was warm enough I went without a hat and my glasses didn't fog over from the warmth of my double-masked face.  The only drawback was the intense sun glare when walking south.  But I could put up with that, so enjoyed a long winter walk among the piles of dirty, chunky snow.  People are still digging out here.  People are dining in the streateries in large numbers.

~~~~~~~~~~

Huge plus: a dear friend facing some nasty surgery, didn't have to undergo it after all, as the problem was solved another way.  Hooray!

Enter Stage Left: Holiday Light and Love

      . . . .Good grief, el V returned, burdened with Stuff. Including the most beautiful pork roast for which there is no room in the freezer, while for days I've been planning and preparing for tonight's beef rib roast, with leftovers. The beef is fresh, not frozen, so .. O dear.

How much Christmas has entered this apartment since Monday or Tuesday, one way and another, when I have done my best to ignore it, feeling anything but holidayish. Our friends and family have remembered us in gracefully delightful ways.  I’ve been composing and sending Christmas letters to friends. 

This afternoon's sky is that brooding pewter density behind which the shapeless sun shines thinly,  – just a bulbous light.  The wind increased perceptibly while I was out.  The wisteria and rhododendron vines that curtain the street side of the buildings on the West corner of Prince Street, sweep sideways across the walls in the gusts. The streets don’t have many vehicles. I’m guessing – making up a story again – that with the storm expected to begin by 6 PM, people who’d drive into the City from New Jersey and upstate wisely chose to stay home. Besides the 65 mph wind gusts predicted, here it's lashings of rain as well, while west and north lots of snow.  Warmer temperatures had returned after the freezing ones.  But today and tomorrow, exceptionally so -- tomorrow in the 60's.  While it pours rain.  Then within hours the temperatures are to drop to below freezing.  So ... ice!!!!!

But people are out now, o yes, who are almost 100% masked whether inside or out.  Even the very little children on the playground are masked. People have filled the streateries, finding Christmas companionship and cheer before the storm. The feel is so different from most times that I’d guess these are people who live here, not people coming from other states and cities looking for fun. When I say the feel is different, I mean it’s pleasant, calm, attentive, not brittle, angry, sharp, drunk and mean.

In spite of it all, the neighborhood’s festive, with varieties of music from rockabilly to traditional carols leaking out from the restaurants, the cars, and out of people’s apartment windows, plus the lights and decorations.  It’s too bad the storm will screw the restaurants’ business for tonight and all day tomorrow.  Plus, with the wind hitting 65 mph gusts, a lot of these places should be taken down by 6 PM.  But instead I saw at least one place erecting a new one!  People are trying so hard. 

For the first time ever the crèche at St. Anthony’s isn’t displayed; and last year they were able to replace the most aged of the figures – but the church is draped with construction matting and so on, as repairs and renovations go on.  But the Christmas tree under the Washington Arch at Washington Square is up.  I stood there, so happy to see it again, in spite of everything, that I cried.

Wishing all, warm, well-lighted, healthy holidays.  

The Mayor Infuriates A Whole Lot of People

     . . . . The mayor's already taken away ALL the sidewalks from pedestrians for the sake of the goddamned bars and restaurants and churches.  And I do mean all of the sidewalks, and all the sidewalk -- at most we're allowed about 8 inches to walk through blocks and blocks of maskless spewing assholes.  As of this last weekend, additionally, Christmas tree markets stands have taken over the last sidewalk that wasn't now a restaurant.  We can't even go out for exercise as it is! Or to stand or sit outside to make phone calls without driving mad the person who has to hear it. El V's got a medical appointment on Friday.  To get there he has to walk through blocks and blocks and blocks of restaurants on the sidewalks filled with people not wearing masks, seated only inches from where he must walk -- for there is nowhere else to go, except the bumper to bumper street, where the cars rub right up against the so-called walls of these sheds. (The number of cars crashing into these places is rising steadily too, btw.)

Because the mayor will not close the bars and restaurants -- the rest of have suffer further.  As if keeping us indoors while leaving the bars and restaurants and gyms and churches OPEN and filled with assholes without masks will change a goddamned thing about the relentless, increasing numbers and spread. The governor's already begging retired medical professionals to come back to work.

With COVID surging and ICUs filling up, the de Blasio administration is urging older New Yorkers and people with underlying health problems to stay home as much as possible.

A Tuesday advisory from city Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi says they, their household members and caregivers should stay at home “except … to travel to work or school, or for essential purposes including medical care, grocery shopping or pharmacy necessities.”

There is only a sliver semi-positive news to extract for our sorts from these latest updates about the spread of NYC's infection. The only member of our pod now, B, lives alone. El V and I,  we're pretty good, living only with each other -- as opposed to a family of parents and teenagers and middle schoolers.

NYC Health Department Study Identifies Household Contact And Gatherings Of 10 Or More As Major Factors In Virus Transmission - 

The New York City Department of Health has conducted a large-scale study of New Yorkers that shows household contact and gatherings of 10 or more people as the two main drivers of coronavirus.

The data about household infections also underscores the risks and challenges of controlling the virus in a dense city where many residents live in tightly packed quarters either with family members or roommates.

"This is a large part of the spread that we're seeing," Chokshi said. "It also means there's something to be done about it, which is really emphasizing the importance of safe separation."

This means that we need to wear masks and keep a certain Distance, and keep meetings outside brief, again, when we and B do see each other. Sigh. I'd already moved to that protocol last week, if not sooner. Yet, reading these things, it breaks my heart, what it really means personally for so many of us.  All because the mayor and the real estate mafia refuses to shut down the bars and restaurants. because people will not do it, not even for a few months, even though it means the chances of every single one of getting seriously ill or dead.

As Dr. Birx and Fauci have told us -- if a person traveled and met people over the Thanksgiving weekend that person encountered someone who is infect.  Not -- may have met, may have encountered someone positive -- but has encountered someone who was infected.  Period.  But hey who cares when there is gorging on pie to be done!  We're Amurricans and it's our right to put the entire world at risk of death so we can eat pie! With people we often don't even like particularly!  The American way!  We're  #1! Yay!

This species is too stupid to survive.

And yet, I spent four hours making a pea soup from scratch (even longer if taken into account was being mindful last night of putting the dried peas to soak), and washing dishes, drying dishes, putting away dishes, over and over, and cleaning the kitchen floor several times as things spilled, got tracked in etc., and clearning all the appliances.  I didn't get to the workout until after 3.  By the time all the Things (computers) were returned and set-up again in their proper places, by the time I bathed, washed and dried hair,  dressed and the rest -- good lordessa -- it was 7. But trust me, I was furious the entire 7 hours!

Heavenly Perfume

     . . . . For the third week now, El V and B walked the three miles up and back to the Union Square Farmer's Market this afternoon.

El V asks B, "Why didn't we do this all summer long?"

B patiently answers, "Because it only re-opened a month ago."

I'm really glad for the stuff. But I wish ... el V understood that putting onions and garlic and shallots in the same bag with green stuff that gets washed and refreshed throughout the day is a wrong move. He has just learned that one cannot put away items like onions and so on wet. I will have to inform him of this many times before it penetrates. This must be how my mom must have felt teaching me to cook, garden, laundry, sew, clean house, etc.

So pleased to have local celery. Am really hooked on fresh out of the dirt local celery. Also the apartment is perfumed now by the heavenly basil as the bunch's leaves dry, before I begin dealing with it. Heavenly basil, O O O O! Very Happy with the variety of mushrooms too. With them came a lot of dirt, or whatever the growing medium was.

Now we have all the things on hand for this recipe, which we thought we'd try out early next week.

Gochugaru Chicken With Corn, Mushrooms and Zucchini

Anniversary Party

     . . . . Yesterday was our  anniversary.  A perfect July day – appropriately hot but not too hot.  Phone calls and emails of congratulations arrived throughout the day. They were very much appreciated.

Then, off we went, with dear B, uptown to K&C's.  I marveled looking out the window of the service car, at the Hudson River and the city’s River - Highway greenery, extraordinarily lush and intensely, well, green. Or perhaps it's just that I've not been anywhere in 6 months except to where I can walk, so it was all new to my eyes in a way it wouldn't be in a normal summer.  That this isn't a normal summer was obvious because all the greenery of the center lane berms was overgrown and shaggy as our hair. 

Thus the photos K  took of us all last night in their courtyard-garden are all more treasured.  Their yard was beautiful  and peaceful. We reveled in being able to sit out under giant trees' canopy, within so much greenery and not worry about who was approaching us from behind, front or side.  As the evening deepened the fire flies appeared.  Finally so did The Cat reappear, who resented this invasion of how he likes things to be: only his two servants and himself, with no one else around to divert attention from Him.  Then The Cat remembered: O I like these people too -- as long as they go away again!

It being Saturday night in July, their street, filled with residents whose heritage hails from the Dominican Republic generally, or African American, have a party.  We could hear the music blasting and we enjoyed it, did not resent it.  And, thoughtfully, the music stopped at 10 PM.  We were home by about 11:30 -- which was early for us when having a party with K and C.  In Other Times we'd probably not have rolled back here until 3 or 4 in the AM.

C made the very best Salad Nicoise with salmon --  I went to sleep wondering how C got the green beans to taste the way they did -- and woke up wondering the same.  K grilled boar sausage;  there was cold shrimp with a hot mustard rémoulade.  Also cold duck, sliced very thin with foi gras and crisp crackers.

El V had brought a bottle of good champagne, and that, shared among us, was dessert.  We didn't want to leave, they wanted us to stay, but leave we did, when the car service returned to pick us up at 10:30.

To have such friends and have them in such times is a blessing.  There was no one else I would have wanted to be with on this occasion, the first social occasion, since early in March.

The West Side Highway had heavy traffic beyond what I expected, though not what it would have been Before. Before it would have taken far longer than 20 minutes driving between here and K&C's on a Saturday night.  All along the Hudson River, on both sides of the highway, people were packed when we went up -- and there were even more people, and still more flowing toward the River, when we came home.

The crescent moon was dark red-orange, hanging above the Statue of Liberty, throwing its light on the river water.

Back in our neighborhood, the car couldn't drive to our street because the street was blocked off to traffic and it was filled with tables and packed closely with people who didn't know each other, and who did not wear masks.  One fears we will not be able to repeat this evening again for about a year . . . .

Yesterday's E-Letter Answered Today

     . . . . Hello, our dear C!  You know just how to get me laughing:

"The robins try to talk to me and tell me to  go to the garden and dig around so they can get worms, they  have eaten all my strawberries and have started on the blueberries."

​So like robins!  Thank goodness they didn't get all the strawberries; for me personally, it's been a grand 6 weeks of strawberries. I think I'm eating at least two pints of them a week, with other berries and nuts and yogurt.  My breakfast-lunch, and it keeps me going until about 5, when, like the robins, my stomach wishes to start on something else. This is inconvenient because we're not really scheduling dinner until 6:30 - 7:30 PM, pretty much as we have for years.

It's been crazy around here with all the Protests -- we're right in the middle of all the marches coming up out of Brooklyn, coming down from Harlem -- all heading one way or another before or after to Washington Square Park, City Hall Park and so on.  We were ground zero for the really bad weekend of looting, with fires and the rest.  That was scary.  And now everyone is acting as though covid's over, and the people coming in from everywhere to drunkenly howl cheek by jowl, w/o masks or distance, and keeping the vulnerables inside -- the restaurants have taken all the sidewalk space, the parking lanes, a lot of STREET space and the small parks for their tables and bars. There is no where for a pedestrian to keep distance -- and bikers are also riding straight at one on both streets and sidewalks.  At some point I expect drunks and drivers will duke it out . . . . 

El V, B and I go out after 11 PM, to meet in one of the little parks here, with masks, gloves, our own stools, wine and glasses and sanitizer, and sit 6 feet away and chat.  It's really nice. We are very close and very long time friends.  We know he's as careful as we are, and vice versa.  I cook and give B stuff, he bakes and gives us stuff, he's always bringing items from Trader Joe's that I might be out of like onions -- how many onions I use a week is rather astounding. And so has become my spice and herb collection for that matter!

For Juneteenth the pastors, black and white, of a consortium of churches in New England, asked us to conduct a two hour teach in via Zoom around The American Slave Coast.  This was recorded with the pastors asking us questions that we tried to answer, for them to show their congregations this last Friday.  It was a rather exhausting thing since el V and I had to be in a single Zoom box, as having both our computers up and running meant having two microphones open at the same time, and that caused a feedback loop. So we shut mine down.  But as I was in el V's window, which was supposed to be only for a single person, I couldn't move, because, when I did shift, even a tiny bit, my 'portrait' kept blinking in and out, like some sort of weird teleportation action.  That was hard, physically.

El V's continuing the production and editing of the video shot in 2019 and January of 2020 of religious ceremonies.  He's taught himself how to use the programs necessary to do all this -- which is very difficult.  But he's amazing smart and talented, which once again he just demonstrated.  He's and I work together to keep the domestic situation operating.  Before, he was gone so much that even when he was home there was no point in him paying attention to all that.  Now that we're fairly closed down and can't travel and everything is much more difficult and time-consuming due to safety, he's pitched right in. We've been so lucky with whom we are living with.

El V has experienced some spooky health concerns, but they are getting resolved at least, with this reopening, meaning he's been able to have tests, CAT scans and sonograms, and we have learned that nothing is life threatening, i.e. not tumors or infected lymph nodes and so on.

Then my debit card number got hacked, as we learned last weekend from an inquiry text from the bank regarding a charge's legitimacy as we were enjoying a splendid Saturday night dinner. We checked the bank account, and since the 17th the number was racking up charges all over the country!  We reported it to the bank, we reported it to the police, the bank reported it to the police, el V got a temp card and a print out of all the charges, and I already have my new card. Thank goodness, because someone tried to use it with a money transfer site -- 5 figures worth, which would have emptied our account all right! But it looks as of today, that that charge never went through.  

How they got my debit card number I don't know.  I haven't even used the card in months, and certainly not since sometime in April when I used it, over the phone to the service that fills the cash card key with which we can turn on the washers and dryers in the basement. But it certainly spoiled that rarity of perfect balance of peace and contentment and enjoyment that we had been experiencing up to that text message.

The weather has been wonderful until now with the scorching heat having come in.  Nor has it rained for days, after at least two years when it rained nearly every day, and sometimes for several days in a row, and there wouldn't be sun for days.  We could use rain now.

I'm glad you're so well, C.  I wish we could be sitting in your garden like we used to. Dinner parties, o, like you, how we miss dinner parties!  But I think we're kinda stuck with this, at least we here, until deep into next year at the least, since deathcultchief and his cultists are racing around the country and spiking all the new cases by the thousands. The cases all around the country are spiking as badly as they did here in April. 

Yet everyone is acting as though covid's over, and the people coming in from everywhere to stand in place, drunkenly howl, cheek by jowl, w/o masks or distance, and keeping vulnerables inside. The restaurants have taken all the sidewalk space, the parking lanes, a lot of STREET space and the small parks for their tables and bars.  At some point I expect drunks and driver will duke it out . . . .

For another thing, the cases among the under thirty demographic are spiking the highest, and that age group is everywhere, including here, and nowhere, including here, are they practicing any of the safety protocols for themselves or others. They are now the superspreaders. 

The Young are of course among us all, wherever we are. They are where we / you are. And as Young will do / do do, as we did, they move around a lot -- to and from parents, back to apartment, to lover's place in another state, back home here, to visit a friend in another city, back home here. Despite what these governors think they can do to stop it.

In another couple weeks, hoo boy.  Fortunately, it seems people in the Protests aren't sick or getting each other sick either.  They wear masks, and they keep moving, and they are outdoors -- unlike the political yahoos cheering for the man who can send them to the hospital and if they come out alive, they come out accompanied by a million dollar bill.

But [Your Town] continues to thrive, to continue healthy, with the actions of its wonderful residents like you.  I'm so glad there is a [Your Town], that has such wonderful people in it, and is so beautiful.

Love, Us

P.S. Cuba, by the way, is CRUSHING the virus.  Alas though, they are having serious food shortages. .

Breathing Lilacs: Tragedy Is Personal

     . . . . The memory of yesterday's scent of lilacs at Washington Square Park lingers. Which brought to mind, then, Walt Whitman's, "When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom'd", his elegy for the assassinated Abraham Lincoln.  Washington Square Park, though not yet a park* -- all of what was to be known as Greenwich Village -- was Whitman stomping grounds too.

I buried my masked face in them, heedless of the bees -- at least until I noticed them, so entranced I'd been by the strong come hither the blossoms broadcast. That I could smell them so vividly, even through the mask shows 1) the difference in air quality here due to virus; 2) how little the mask prevents air born from coming through. Well yes, the mask is to protect others; it doesn't protect us. O the perfume was heady!  The bees' presence also made me happy.

Did three different class guest spots this last week, including one around The Year Before the Flood: A Story of New Orleans, for a Tulane class.

El V is incredible. His SooperDooperPooter for processing, editing and producing video and film and audio got delivered yesterday, and he had it up and functional before bed! So's he able now to send quickly these enormous files of content to the VIMEO website for sharing with the film maker in New Orleans, with whom he's  working on the Cuban content, among other things. It's so great to have decent tools. To render (this word has a special meaning within this Adobe PremierePro program, which I won't clutter this post with)  his work loads and then send them along used to take something 24 hours, and even the slightest burp in internet service or speed would stop it, and then it would have to start all over from zero, including all the edits, tweeks, synching, volume control, color saturation, etc. Now he can do it in minutes!

Seems last night I got mildly high from the amount of Erica’s THC Soothing Salve, and her Freeze lotion, which I vigorously and lengthily rubbed into both of us last night as both of us have screaming neck and back pain. Felt happy and peaceful, giggled a lot together during Reading Aloud. John Quincy Adams just gets to be more fascinating and enjoyable the older he gets.  

And, just before lights out a friend emailed this Yo-Yo-Ma Book Section link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/books/review/yo-yo-ma-by-the-book-interview.html

Q: What books are on your nightstand?

“The World That Made New Orleans,” by Ned Sublette.

“Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo,’” the oral history of one of the last known African survivors of the Middle Passage, by Zora Neale Hurston.

The memoirs of Alexandre Dumas, the first volume of which I am struggling through in French.

“Spirit Rising,” by the unparalleled Angelique Kidjo, who recommended the first three titles. She and I are working on a new project that explores some of the less-known intersections between what we think of as Western classical and African music.

What great book company to be in -- Alexandre Dumas! even.  So big shout outs this week from both Rhiannan Giddens (Cuba and its Music) and Yo-Yo-Ma (The World That Made New Orleans) -- and Angélique Kidjo too -- who back when it came out had herself photographed holding up The American Slave Coast!  for Ned's books!

Of course I am ignoring just about everything that isn't part of our own little world -- all too easy to do, when in quarantine.  But mentally ill neighbor across the hall helps keep me grounded in the awareness of other realities, with one request after another: opening cartons, bottles, etc. that she can't because she took much of her medication, fell and hurt her arm and shoulder; cooking for her; providing ear plugs and three phone calls of how to use them >?< in one day; a wash cloth because she doesn't have any; toothbrush and toothpaste, etc. 

That we're having nice days is certainly having an effect upon our mood this week. We're just generally more relaxed and peaceful. For now.

All I can say is, "Thank you lordessa, for B and his weekly supply of cornbread!"

Even the absentee ballot requests for both of us arrived -- finally! -- in yesterday's mail, so I will be able to vote in next month's Dem Pres Nom primary -- from which ballot the Dem party bigwigs including Cuomo have done everything they can to 1) not hold; 2) remove Bernie Sanders.

Also, for a variety of reasons, some of our friends are moving back to NYC . . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~

*  Fort Green Park was Whitman's park of the heart, from at least the 1840's on.