Chicken Little reprised...The Ladies...My Office for a day

 

        My journalist's "fire horse" instinct is irrepressible. We'll sort through some thoughts and analysis of the "sky is falling" syndrome, but first we're sharing recent work of my favorite artist.

        When she is not doing ceramics or gardening she keeps busy making a variety of cards. My favorites are "Lana's Ladies."

    

        It's fascinating and entertaining to watch the population grow. Each Lady is a personality unto herself. She is begun as a water color, then Lana accessorizes.

          The process is an art unto itself. As you can see they are a combination of elements, pieces gathered from assorted sources. She uses old greeting cards, packaging material, advertising flyers, remnants of art projects, the inside of tea boxes, paper product and anything that brings a texture, color or can be imagined as something one of her Ladies would wear.

      When she was an art student at Ball State she often said artists are the first recyclers.

        

        Do you know this feeling? Do you need a break?

I do? Political burn out. So I moved my study for the day. Good reception, note pad, gentle breeze, lulling surf, peace and quiet.

        A simple nervine for all of us is to cut back on the volume of political junk we let into our lives. Attention is necessary, to what is important, but there’s a lot to be filtered out. Media hype for example.

    

        Media was up to a froth of dire projections and a near hysterical certainty by election day. I wish they would back off the addiction to polls. Are they more interested in predicting outcome than reporting? 

        Political journalism has been "game" obsessed since Teddy White's The Making of the President 1960, the book that made  inside politics the major thrust of coverage. This year was desperate in trying to read the tea leaves.

        Predictive reporting is ephemera. 

        Common sense held as voters drew the line on crazy. MAGA is too crazy, Trump is not to be trusted, and voters cared more about freedom and individual choice than inflation.           

        No plan of their own, MAGA Republicans failed in their attempt to put economic disruption on Biden. Informed voters understand the impact of Putin's war, its global economic fall out, and the rampant price gouging.

        Predicting a "red wave," the media misread voters.

        

        Trump is damaged goods. He's losing backers and media pimps. He has challengers, and investigations and legal battles. The GOP is in for a wild ride.

        House Republicans will be a clown car in a train wreck while on the way to the gong show. Kevin McCarthy is nakedly ambitious. It will be a side show watching a coward without virtue try to manage the asylum. Hunter Biden will be the new Benghazi. Someone should pass out Ken Starr stickers to the loud and proud.

        There is a closing note from this old scribe. The media will not do it, but Joe Biden should get a lot of credit for why and how the red wave became a light mist. He drew the line. He made the case for democracy, against authoritarians, election deniers and fascists. He pointed out the risk of falling for crazy. His mid term performance went against the historic trend, and the polls. Joe Biden knows the American voter and he has a longer view than anyone else. Sometimes the old reliable is the best bet.

        See you down the trail.

    

SERVING TRUTH-TOPPING MORRO ROCK-EATING IN A BARN

WISDOM FROM A YOUNG MAN

   "The highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself…In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation."

                     John Kennedy October 25, 1963

MORRO BAY TOPPING

    Morro Rock is perpetually fascinating in an infinite variety of light or cloud.

     It is one of "seven sisters-" tectonic/volcanic mounts that ridge the central coast from Morro Bay to south of San Luis Obispo.

   On our first trip to this area in 1969 we stopped to pick up fish and oysters on the docks of the fishing port next to what we called "the big rock."

   The cars and people in the foreground give you a perspective to its size.

BLUE DUTY

BARN DINNER

     In coaxing brother John and I into the world of good manners Mom would offer "Mind your table manners. You're not eating in a barn" a variation of "Close the door, you weren't born in a barn" which made sense as she was a farm girl in her youth.

     Mom would get a delight in this. I relied on those manners, including which fork and knife for what course, recently in a barn!

   Hope you can read the menu, because the Halter Ranch Wine Club Ancestor Dinner was first class.

   The lemon-pine nut pot de creme' desert, that I failed to photograph, was served with vin de paille.  The frame below is vin de paille in the making. Vin de paille, or straw wine, is similar to ice wine.  The grapes are permitted to dry for an extended time, building up the sugar content.  

    Another Paso Robles wine maker uses a syrah grape, dried in the vineyard.  La Vigne's Amerone is a superb wine too. The Paso appellation is rich with creativity and great wine.

   Lest those of you in other climes come to think that Epicurean delights are all Cambrians pursue, here's an update.

    Sunday morning a group presented a personal account of a recent back packing adventure across an 11 thousand foot passage on the John Muir trail in the high Sierra.

     The trek was not without incident, some got lost which raised the very real thoughts of life's fragility. It all ended well and each of the team presented personal insights, observations and reflections. It was a meaningful and enlightening time.

                              HOME TOWN POLITICS

                                           

   A standing room only crowd filled the Unitarian Universalist Community meeting room to see the six candidates for the Community Service District board of directors election. Two of the incumbents are up reelection and face 4 challengers.

  The CCSD board serves as the government in this village where everyone has an at least one opinion and where everyone is correct and knows the absolute right way things should be. Just ask anyone!

   Water is a big issue in year three of a drought. So too is growth in this village, the last population of significance on the Pacific Coast Highway between here and Carmel. It's good of these neighbors-everyone is a neighbor in a village of this size-to put themselves out there.

    Stay tuned. In the meantime my favorite Cambria heroes are the artists in this enclave of originality.

   See you down the trail.

THE GOOD FORTUNE OF....

A CONFLUENCE OF AN IDEA
AND A PERSON
Mandela as an example

    The world's knowledge of Nelson Mandela has grown exponentially thanks to media saturation this last week.

    The comparison to George Washington as father of his nation is apt. Both men were requisite for their moment in history and by all accounts both rose above their own pain, suffering and challenge to evince a defining national character.  

    Churchill's legacy, rallying a battle scarred Britain to stand in the breach of WWII is another contemporary example-the correct person at a pivotal moment. Copernicus, Einstein, Newton and Da Vinci are among others who perceived and thought reality and boundary busting norms and who pushed history.

     Is there something behind such motions of time and history?  Fate? Serendipity? Providence? What do you think?

     What makes some people so very special?

and art as an example

A POINT OF REFERENCE
a meditation on
what was or what might be?

ART COLLABORATION
as an example

    Though my skill is sub zero on any scale, I've always been fascinated with artist studios. And I've been lucky to live with an extraordinarily talented woman who has created fascinating spaces from which to create.

   I've noted too, that artists generally stimulate greater output when they are in each other's company.  Here's a snap shot of such.  Karen from Marin County, Jane from North Carolina and Lana from Cambria in a moment that could best be described as an engine running flat out.

People and moments
historic passages
creative endeavours
break throughs in knowledge
like the advent of light in darkness.
Nothing is as it was before 
that moment or that person.

And we have the good fortune to live with the difference.

See you down the trail.

INSPIRED

A DOSE OF GOOD MEDICINE

    Being personal now- our fall trip to Washington was a much needed medication.

    Time with our dear friends Frank and Sandy was part of a cure. The other "tonic" was to touch history, art and culture as an antidote to a bruising and almost unfathomable battle.

    I sense some of you are saying, "What the...?  Washington as a place to go for peace and inspiration?  Yes!  Yes indeed!

   Frequent readers remember I'm a First Amendment fanatic. I'm the kind of goof who reads the Declaration of Independence each Fourth of July, and who is adamant about protecting our liberties and who holds dear the extraordinary set of bones upon which this republic hangs-the Constitution.

   I believe that all of us are entitled the full extension of  rights, privileges and responsibilities laid out for us by the founders, protected by sacrifices through generations and increased by our perpetually growing enlightenment. 

   So Washington DC is the touchstone, in so many ways.

   Ingrained in the raison d'être of these monuments and memorials are intellects, sacrifices, leadership, vision and a devotion to an ideal-a nation where all live in equality. 
   Personalities who have risen to lead are honored, beyond their days, as a challenge to us in our time.  These stone reminders are a tonic. We are humbled and inspired by what we see and remember.

    Service personnel and journalists have given much, including their all so that we may know and live free. They inspire me.
   Politicians who rise above petty politics to move the arc of history as statesmen inspire me.

    Temples that celebrate the best of our creative dreams,  reaching and artistic output, inspire and offer a healing balm.

    And so our divided and dysfunctional Congress, beleaguered Presidency and questionable Supreme Court do not detract from the wide and long sweep of the true greatness that can and has emerged in and from this Capitol of human longings and achievement. It is not perfect.  None of the heroes who are memorialized were perfect. Like all of us, they had feet of clay and were made of the same star matter. 
   We have eras of which to be proud and periods of shame and embarrassment but it is always on a human scale, moving toward an ideal, an inch, a day, a moment at a time.

    So I take from all of it an inspiration and renewed zeal to stay stalwart in my belief that all of us, regardless of birthright, are children under the same heaven, brothers and sisters of planet earth. I may not like you, I may not agree with you, but neither that, nor how and who you were born should stand between you and full equality, even in a church.

    Your color, your gender, your ethnic heritage, your sexual orientation, your physical or mental challenges simply make you a human being, entitled to the full privileges of life.

    I thank the good Lord for a vision that it is so, and for a nation where we get better at making it so and for a place where we build monuments and temples to remind us to make sure it is always so and to recall those who have said so.

    See you down the trail.

REMEMBERING WES & PACIFIC ART

THAT CAT CAN PLAY

     Jazz radio hosts are remembering the great Wes Montgomery on this the 90th anniversary of his birth. Even though I'm a Caucasian with no musical talent I feel a kinship to the guitarist from Indianapolis.

     First,  there is the hometown connection. Then several years ago I worked with Wes's brother, Buddy, a great player in his own right in trying to develop a documentary on Wes.  We couldn't get a buyer, but the time working with Buddy and hearing tales was a thrill.

     I got hooked on jazz when I was a high school kid who'd listen to rhythm & blues and jazz radio.  I had to be in the minority of whites, especially young whites, who listened.

     I was working in the mid-town area at an FM station known for it's classical and semi classical play list, but I'd listen to a small station that played jazz.  My station was in the heart of the city, in an old hotel that at the time was known as a place for hookers, working out of the marbled bar and lobby. The jazz station was further east, in what had become an industrial neighborhood, near the giant RCA plant. I'd drive through that area on the way into my Saturday and Sunday shifts, from noon to 1:00 AM. One day I had filled in for a regular staff guy and on the way home decided to stop in at the jazz station.

      I knew the Dearborn Hotel, because I played in a basketball league that played in the famous little gym there. I punched the elevator button for the top floor and passed through levels of aroma.  There was stale smoke smell of the lobby, the gym smell, food and what I call old hotel aromas.  There was a buzzer on a door at the end of the hall that displayed the station's call letters. I was about to leave after a couple of punches when a black man with slicked backed hair, a goatee and wearing a white shirt and tie asked "What can I do for you sunny?"

      I explained my mission, told him of my love of jazz and he bid me entry into a small office, stacked full of records and a couple of desks cluttered with broadcast logs-records of the music and commercials played.  We sat in the studio over looking the neighborhood, toward the downtown and chatted.  He was a jazz player too. He'd played with Wes and the great JJ Johnson among others.  

      I think he was amazed to count among his listeners a white suburban high school boy, but he seemed thrilled just to know the music "crossed over."  

     I was struck by a comment about Wes.  

     "He is one fine negro gentleman, and man that cat can play."

     That was back in the early 60's.  From that era here are a couple of videos of the great Wes Montgomery.

     The first tune is an original-Jingles

Here he is with a couple of other legends.

    Man, that cat can play!

PACIFIC BLUFF ART

 

    See you down the trail.