02022-01-13 | Uncategorized
I heard this song for the first time in a cab in Lisbon last month. I shazammed it right away and discovered that it was called Fica Tudo Bem (Apple Music link, YouTube link) and was by a Brazilian artist named Silva. The title means it’s okay or it’s alright. The verse and chorus are very sparse, but each chorus is followed by a super-lush bridge with flugelhorn and strings.
The whole album, called Brasileiro, is very good. Enjoy!
PS: traffic is very different in Lisbon… I only heard two or three horns honking in three weeks. People don’t drive like they are competing with each other or like they are getting paid for every minute they gain in traffic. Returning stateside it only took a couple of minutes to hear the honking, yelling and squealing tires of angry drivers. Perhaps listening to Fica Tudo Bem can help us mellow out in traffic. :-)
02022-01-09 | Uncategorized
I really should strive to populate my photos, to make an effort to allow people to happen. Something to try in the new year, perhaps.
02022-01-09 | Uncategorized
…the less is there.
This is a follow-up post to Reading + Identity, from a few days ago.
When we stop spinning our wheels, when we sit down and try to get to the bottom of this strange and wonderful experience of being human, we discover that there is no ground, only shifting sand. This is true for me but not at all unique to me. Many have reported the same or similar experiences.
It’s like staring at an image and watching it dissolve.
The more we look at ourselves the more of a mystery life becomes. All of the names and identities, all of what we thought we are begins to unravel… in a good way, because this is freedom.
We lose ourselves in love, in playing music, in practicing a craft, in meditation or prayer. Strangely, we feel more complete when we lose ourselves. No more guitar player, only guitar-playing, no more lover, only loving. The self and the identifications were only getting in the way.
02022-01-05 | Lx, Photos
This is a fun Buzzfeed called “40 Tweets That Pretty Much Perfectly Sum Up What Being An Adult Is All About”. So much truthiness. I especially recommend this Buzzfeed when you are in an airport for a long time and need a distraction.
Yesterday could be summed up in the words of Charlie Brown:
I am staying in bed Snoopy. It’s too Peopley our there
I think I am going to get a lot of use out of that word. :-)
Airports were not designed for pandemics. I kept thinking of cattle chutes while getting bunched up with other humans. There were signs everywhere to keep six feet from others but if a line is set up to fold back on itself one is forced to walk within one or two feet of others. And that’s without so many people ignoring such advice anyway and standing very close. Perhaps I was also shocked by the lack of discipline I encountered. Too many people either wore their mask in a mocking way… nose uncovered or both nose and mouth uncovered, or not at all.
I ended up wearing a KN95 mask for 20 hours. From the moment I ordered coffee in the morning, then took a car to the airport… all the way to arriving at home at midnight. No, I didn’t enjoy it. Yes, my face felt itchy and dry when I finally took the mask off. I am triple vaccinated and tested negative on Monday, so I am not necessarily scared about getting infected but I certainly don’t want to infect someone else–or by infecting them infect their grandmother.
At the airport I thought about how nice it would be to be able to rent a little room just for an hour. It wouldn’t have to be large, just big enough to lay down, do some yoga, sit in meditation, or simply take one’s mask off and read in quiet. Seven by six feet should do it? At first I thought I would gladly pay $25 for an hour, then I realized I would happily pay much more for that luxury. The problem, of course, would be cleaning the room. One could use hydrogen peroxide misting to kill germs, but surfaces would still have to be cleaned by a person who would remove trash left in the room, for example. Perhaps a clever person could invent an automated system for cleaning the space.
Totally unrelated, here is a cool bike rack:
02022-01-03 | Lx, Photos
Traveling during a pandemic was never going to be easy. I am reminded of something my monitor engineer said every time there was a problem that needed to be solved in order to do the show.
“If it was easy everyone would do it”, he would say and calmly go about finding a solution.
Some days ago, I scheduled and paid for a covid test online and was given a number and an appointed time – ten in the morning. Arriving a half hour early, I saw two long lines of people leading to two doors of a container which served as a mobile covid test center. I learned one of the lines was for people to make an appointment in person, the other was for people who already had an appointment. The number and appointment time were apparently of no importance at all.
Waited in line.
If I were organizing this, I thought, there would be a screen above the entrance. The screen would show the next number and there would only be a line of two or three people because everyone else could walk around waiting for the number on the screen to go up. Instead the line felt too tight, too many people, too close.
Did you notice that people keep going in but no one comes out, I asked. This situation reminded me of the 1973 movie “Soylent Green”. In the movie, it’s the year 2022 (!!!) and earth is overpopulated and polluted. Check and check. People eat green food that is made from plankton. There are street protests and the protesters are scooped up by huge machines. At some point I remember a man running through the street screaming, Soylent Green is people!!!!
You see, people keep going into this testing lab container and I haven’t seen anyone come out. It’s 2022 and there is probably a trap door, I joked, and you fall down a chute and it’s all rather quick and painless.
Getting the q-tip shoved up my nose wasn’t painful, and there was a side door through which I exited. An hour later, I received the result, which was negative and so tonight I’ll be able to eat inside a restaurant instead of chilling with my food outside.
