Coping

A long hiatus between posts. Lots of us around the world are channeling Elizabeth Kubler Ross and her grief stages since the American election and we don’t even live there. Like others I pretended to say “Whatever” and never watched CNN and turned to favourite neurotic writers like Anne Lamott who could be counted on for despair on Face Book - and of course she delivered. It helped.

I could still scan headlines of the New York Times as long as I didn’t read the articles about cabinet picks. Our prime minister was off to dinner at the Mar-A-Logo- Verseilles Headquarters to see if he could charm the incoming president out of 25% tariffs. I read Jaret Lanier’s little book on why we should all leave social media and put leaving on my task list for consideration. Since I had paid to remove advertisements from YouTube and I could watch it on a big screen, this provided additional diversion.

But I did come across an interview from the 92nd street Y - that gave me hope. It featured two public figures that I like - Tom Friedman and Van Jones - (despite the abandoned CNN connection). Jones told an interesting story to Tom. After writing a scathing column about Jared Kushner after the 2016 election, he was surprised to get a call from him - asking for help. Kushner reminded Jones that when his father was in prison, it gave him insight into how bad the prison system really was. He knew Jones had written about it with real conviction. He invited him to work quietly on some legislation and Jones agreed. It was one of the few successful pieces of legislation in the first Trump presidency. Helping out, Jones said, has cost him several friendships because of working with '“the other side”. But it felt like the right thing to do and gave him considerable satisfaction. Working for good with people we don’t necessarily agree with has to be part of the answer. And even Anne Lamott, now happily married at last has a new book out that says, when it comes right down to it, in the end it’s all about Love.

Hey America

Tomorrow is your day. Sitting here in Toronto, I’ve done everything I possibly can to help. I’ve read every New Yorker article and watched The Political Scene and Washington Week. I’ve cancelled my Washington Post subscription - confession - it runs until March so I still get to read everything on my Kindle, but it sends a message along with the 249,999 others to Mr Bezos. I cancelled Twitter almost as soon as it was X. I read all the NY Times articles before turning to Wordle, Strands etc. I’ve watched Robert Reich’s Coffee Klatch and David Remick’s interview with Rachel Maddow. I watched part of an endless production about the American by our own national network. I tried a week of no screens about two weeks ago, but of course I came back.

Have I missed anything? I did read Timothy Snyder’s On Freedom. and absorbed the five things that are important - in contrast to much of the above. We need sovereignty - a sense of being our own person, brought about by a careful and caring upbringing. We need unpredictablity - to move beyond the framework of our birth to seek something better. We need mobility - to be able to move physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. We need factuality - to be able to distinguish what is real from fantasy. We need solidarity - because individually we can never do what we can do collectively.

It’s your turn now. I did live in New York in the sixties and produce a dual Canadian/American citizen, that I urged to vote. I can’t. What you do has implications for my country and countless others. The choice is stark - “Again” or “Not Going Back”.

Memes, Muses and More

When I see that I haven’t written in more than a month, I start by feeling guilty and apt to make excuses, but probably to my most regular reader, myself.  The truth is I also set up some equipment for drawing and painting and that didn’t go very far either.  Like most people, I think I can accomplish more than I actually can, and it’s not because of age or willpower. I just have made other things take a higher priority - and they are worthwhile.

They have been good results. I spent August preparing for twice-monthly piano selections for coming lessons in the fall and enjoyed them. I was inspired by online instruction from Seymour Bernstein as well as his book on practising piano. I came upon a handbook which helps even an amateur learning to play any instrument. The Practice Handbook is designed for those who it describes as “seriously enthusiastic”, musicians, but it is a model for any serious endeavor. You can find out more at Muse & Mate. Serious confession. The first lesson happened and I played really badly - but different studio, no listener for too long, too much self confidence. It’s good to come back to earth.

Like many others, I have laughed at all the memes that resulted from some of the crazy comments about pet cuisine at the debate - and I was right that it was AI that produced a great page that looks like it comes straight from Dr. Suess with those famous lines. There have been good memes as well as well - until I stopped smiling when I read about their effects on legal immigrants - bomb, threats, closed schools, distrust. Racism isn’t funny. Political vitriol anywhere should make us ashamed. We are very eager consumers of just about anything set before us. I won’t share the meme.

And then there are two related invitations today. One is from a faith body inviting me to a special service celebrating a Season of Creation. The other is inviting me to a Green Drinks Party, “Saving the world one Sip at a Time” - meeting in a local pub with an invitation to people already interested in the environment or looking to find such a group. It is an Irish pub of course. I’m already booked with a group discussing the important book, The Wall Between, tomorrow night, or I might have been drawn to the second. The first group may have to deal with the the reality that climate change and its impact isn’t restricted to a season!

Power

I watched the PBS Frontline program on Biden earlier this week. it’s something of a rags to riches story telling how Biden saw John F. Kennedy’s rise when he was a teenager and decided to imitate it - in spite of not having the financial resources of his model. Both men had influential fathers. The irony of following a model that produced tragedy for both was all too real in this story. Death was always in the background of the climb to power.At one point we see Biden weeping as he watches his son Beau speaking at a convention as though he might be a future presidential candidate, but knowing what others didn’t - that the son would soon die of a brain tumor. It is not a surprise that the president has been seen as a healer since he had too many times to have to heal himself. It’s also not a surprise that the parents who lost their sons in the flight from Afghanistan resented it when Biden said that he knew who they felt at such a time of loss, then spoke about his son, not theirs.

When we’re down, we get up - the ongoing mantra - was a resolution that could help anything but the march of time. Power is attractive when we get it, and its not surprising that we want to keep it. But ultimately what we do with power speaks to our own agency. No one could push Biden out no matter how much they might have wanted to. Perhaps his finest moment should be the one when he made the painful choice to not get up, but to step down. He deserves some time to grieve the loss of something he spent most of his time preparing for. Coming out of that is a hope for a return of that amazing smile. Elders have a role as our indigenous brothers and sisters know.

How About Real Intelligence

I’m reading in the Washington Post this morning that visual artists and photographers are already feeling the blows of artificial intelligence by having it steal their images. They are leaving the social media that claims copyright for anything they post there..

Last night I attended an event jointly presented by the Toronto Symphony and Tapestry Opera - a master class for four rapidly rising women conductors. The program, also jointly supported by the Vancouver Symphony, is intended to create more gender balance in this professional field. It was wonderful to watch each of them privileged to work with seasoned professional musicians as well as being tutored in a good humoured way by a master conductor. This is the second of these master classes I have attended watching some of the same young professionals, and what a pleasure to see growth as they continue building their careers.

And what I heard were one time performances. Perhaps they have been recorded and will appear online later. But nothing can duplicated hearing it as it was - with the drama and immediacy, and sometimes the improvement as the conductors repeated a passage after direction. No mashup by a machine can ever duplicate it. We need to experience real events in real time created by real artists - in concert halls and galleries.