Dreaming of the Masters

Jaimie Branch is an exciting new voice in modern jazz with a trumpet style that evokes past masters from Lester Bowie (Art Ensemble of Chicago) to Don Cherry.

Her new album, Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise, presents a kaleidoscopic variety of styles yet has an engaging structure throughout that's almost cinematic in its scope.

Far from a repertory traditionalist, Branch's music is unmistakable contemporary.  This music  could not have been composed in the 20th Century, yet she deftly avoids falling into traps of catering to fads - no hip-hop rapping or Autotuned vocals.  

Prayer for Amerikkka, Pt. 1 & 2 speaks directly to our current social and political situation, and may well become as much an anthem for our time as Bob Dylan's protest songs of the 60s or Charles Mingus' outcries against racism.

It has literally been decades since I've been this excited about a new voice in jazz music.

Mysterious Stranger

I woke up in the middle of the night last evening - let's say around 3:30 a.m. or so.  I rolled over and tried to immediately fall back asleep but to no avail.  I decided to go to the kitchen and drink a sip or two of water before trying to sleep again.

I didn't turn the kitchen light on because I didn't want to awake myself any more fully, and besides there's enough ambient light  from the urban environment coming in through the windows, not to mention all the LCD displays on the appliances, especially once the refrigerator's open.  I stumbled around briefly, opened the fridge, and swigged a few sips of Vitamin Water's orange-flavored Rise.    

It would be an understatement to say I was surprised when I noticed someone standing outside looking in through the kitchen window.  What were they doing out there?  Were they just waiting for the off chance that I might be up at 3:30 a.m.?  Were they hoping that I wasn't up?  Either way, why were they just standing there and not moving?

Adrenaline rush.  Okay, now I was fully awake.

It turns out it wasn't a person at all, but a rag hanging from a ladder that the roofers had left overnight before they finished the job this morning.  They did a good job of cleaning up the property after they finished today, but overnight it looked like a demolition site.  The pinkish rag hanging from the ladder caught me by surprise last night, and my mind immediately interpreted it as a person, until I noticed it wasn't moving and then, on closer inspection, realized what it actually was. 

I felt ridiculous for reacting as I had, and once my mind understood what the object actually was, I couldn't imagine how I had initially seen it as a "person."  But nature or instinct has evolved with us to be alert to potential threats but sometimes that instinct misfires and misidentifies some harmless thing as a threat.  It's probably more useful for survival to be wired that way than, say, the opposite - to assume everything's harmless unless closer inspection reveals a threat.  

Our mind is continuously encountering countless phenomena - the Buddha called them "the myriad dharmas."  Subconsciously, our mind categorizes all those phenomena and identifies some as useful and possibly pleasurable, and others as hostile and potentially harmful.  But the vast majority of phenomena fall into neither category and are simple ignored.  Many don't even register in our consciousness at all.  

We'd never make it through the day if we had to consider the possible benefit or threat posed by every object that enters our field of sight - the laces on a passer-by's shoes, the car parked on a side street, a distant tree in the park.  The problem, however, is that we don't even notice most of what appears before us.  It's our life and we're missing it.

The problem is that a silly ROM freaks out at 3:30 a.m. over a rag hanging from a ladder.

Roof Day!

It's said that one way to think of the difference between the Western mind and the Asian mind is to consider a room.  To the Western mind, a room is defined by four walls that meet at corners.  To the Asian mind, a room is defined by four corners connected by walls.

After my recent experiences, I've come to think a room is defined by the roof over it, not the walls around it. 

Which is to say that my roof is finally getting replaced today.  The crew showed up at 7:15 a.m. (naturally while I was in the shower) and worked all day until at least 7:15 at night.  They're still not finished and will be back again tomorrow morning. 

One of the reasons that it took them so long is that I apparently had three roofs.  I had a hard time understanding that concept initially, until it was explained to me that previous owners must have chosen not to remove the old roof when performing upgrades but just put a new roof on top of the old one without carting away the old material.  I had some shingles replaced a couple years ago and the contractors described it to me then as "patches on top of patches," but not three complete roofs.  Naturally, it took them more time to remove all three layers and my price increased slightly due to the additional disposal costs.

Weather throughout the day was clear and sunny, but cold (30° F).  The weather's forecast to remain clear through the weekend, but then starting Monday of next week, we're getting another four straight days of rain again.  But now, with the new roof up above my home, I can endure the rain with less anxiety.  

For the record, the cats didn't like the banging and pounding up on the roof all day.  Not one bit.

A Modest Proposal

Earlier this month, I was complaining that the 49 Senators who voted for hearing testimony during the Impeachment Trial actually represent 19 million more people than the 51 Senators who voted against testimony.  

By design, the Senate is supposed to equally represent the 50 American states, but not necessarily the American populace.  That's the House's job.  As you undoubtedly know, in the Senate, two Senators are assigned for each of the 50 states with the intention of democratically representing the will of the states (but not necessarily the people).

But the Founding Fathers couldn't have possibly foreseen the way the country would grow over the next two centuries.  Sure, the original 13 colonies did not all have equal populations, but there's no way the Founding Fathers could have anticipated a state like California, with a population of nearly 40 million people and representing almost 12% of the population.  Meanwhile and on the other hand, Wyoming at 579,000 people represents only 0.17% of the population.  Yet they're equally represented in the Senate.

Artist and urban planner Neil Freeman came up with the map above, which redraws the 50 states into territories of equal population.  In other words, each of the fictitious states above contains 2% of the American population, or about 6.5 million people each.  In this alignment, the vote of the Senate would more accurately represent the will of the people.

Freeman used a lot of wit in coming up with the state names and I appreciate his liberal use of native names for the land.  New York, L.A., Chicago and Atlanta would all be their own states going by their city names, but Boston would have to incorporate much of eastern New England to make up 6.5 million people and gets called "Casco."  Probably my favorite name is "Throgs Neck" for southwest Connecticut and the lowermost part of upstate New York.  I'm not sure of the etymology of the name "Firelands" for the Toledo/Cleveland area; I wonder if it's a reference to the Cuyahoga River catching on fire in the 60s.  Also, kudos for naming Alabama and adjacent parts of the deep south for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Best part - no separate North and South Dakota!

This of course will never happen and I'm not seriously proposing that it does.  But it is a good thought experiment that illustrates how profoundly undemocratic the U.S  Senate has become.  

Nothing Sketchy About This At All . . .

It's raining again today but frankly I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Mattiel at The Earl, Atlanta, February 22, 2020

As soon as opening act Greenscreen took the stage, there was something familiar about them.  I asked my friend, "Who does that guy on keyboards remind you of?," but I couldn't put a name to the face until the music started and only then did I recognize Christian Ballew of the now-defunct band Christ, Lord.  And once I had that context in mind, everything else kicked into place and I recognized Chris Yonker of the band Karaoke and the now-defunct Hello Ocho, as well as members of Atlanta's Faun and a Pan Flute.  

Anyway, Greenscreen surprised me with a really great set of new, original songs.  Yonker's vocals and guitar were nicely complimented by two saxophones whose style ranged from R&B swing to free-jazz squonk, and Ballew contibuted some Mellotron and. on one song, vocals.  A really nice set and I look forward to hearing more from them.

But the sold-out crowd was there to see home-town favorite Mattiel Brown.  Mattiel is a vocalist with two albums to her credit, Mattiel (2017) and Satis Factory (2019).  AllMusic.com describes her sound as "sunbaked rock & roll with a retro vibe that harks back to '60s garage rock and a blues-rock edge similar to early White Stripes."

She has a powerful voice that rises over and cuts through the rock music of her band and reminds me at times of vintage Amy Winehouse.  Her set last night at The Earl consisted of high-energy performances of songs from both her albums, as well as a Clash cover.  

As per my usual preference, I saw the show from the front of the stage, and between sets wound up meeting both her Mom and the guitarist's Dad.  Dad actually asked me if one of my sons was in the opening band Greenscreen (because why else would someone my age be front-row at the show?).  No offence meant and none taken, but knowing the band's parents were in the audience only added to the homecoming vibe off the show, the last date in a long U.S. tour that stated last January (they had a long, three-month tour of Europe last year).

Dreaming of the Masters

It shouldn't surprise you that I'm drawn to a song titled Everything Happens To Me after the water-logged week I've had.

Zen Master Dogen once said that:

The way of water is not something water is aware of, yet water is fully capable of functioning. Water ascends to ever so many lofty places in the heavens above to form rain and dew, and rain and dew take a variety of forms according to the worlds in which they appear. To say that there is some place that water does not reach is incorrect.  Water exists in the tongues of flames, and in our thoughts and deliberations and distinctions, and in our perceptions, and in our nature. When water descends to earth, it becomes rivers and streams. In the opinion of the ordinary and the befuddled, water is that which exists in rivers, streams, oceans, and seas, but this is not so, for the rivers and seas have come into existence along with the water. Thus, there is water even in places where there are no rivers or seas. It is just that when water descends to earth, it creates the effect of ‘rivers and seas'.

Callooh! Callay! Oh, frabjous day! The rain had stopped by dawn today!

As forecast, it rained well into the night but by the time I got up this morning, the sun was out and blue could be seen in the sky.  What's more, it didn't snow although as I predicted, some chowderhead ran his car into a power pole anyway, apparently while trying to evade the police.  It knocked power out, but fortunately this was in Cabbagetown and didn't affect me here.

I was even able to take my walk on the Northeast Beltline trail today.

It's supposed to be even clearer tomorrow and then only partially cloudy on Sunday  Three more days of rain are scheduled again for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but then after that, they're forecasting at least four days of alternating sunshine and partial clouds.  It's the first four days of non-rain in the forecast for as far back as I can remember.   

The Taoists say, “The way of water is to ascend to the sky, forming rain and dew, and to descend to the earth, forming rivers and streams.” I would add that the Tao of water is also to enter my kitchen, through taps and faucets on some days and by sneaking in beneath the back door on others.  

To put it in modern scientific terms, my goal is to extricate my kitchen from the hydrologic cycle.

To express it as New Age, psycho-metaphysics, I am trying to achieve a state where the only interaction between the natural hydrologic cycle of water and the anthropogenic micro-biome that I've come to think of as "my kitchen" is in accordance with my own volition.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Weeds Flourish

Today's twelve hours of incessant, non-stop rain are finally over.  Each hour of the hour-by-hour forecast was for 100% chance of rain, and that forecast was correct.  It was raining from when my alarm clock went off this morning until about an hour ago.

Now the forecast is for snow overnight, Atlanta's greatest existential dread.  It'll probably already have melted off by the time I get up tomorrow, but someone in the city will have already driven a truck into a power pole, someone else will have abandoned their car in the middle of the in-town interstate highway, and traffic won't recover until about mid- next week.   That's how we roll down here when it snows.

The good news is that after the snow passes through we're going to have at least three days of not rain. The sun might even come out on Saturday, but at least this streak of rain has stopped.  Of course, after three non-rainy days, it's supposed to start raining again.

But even better, my kitchen didn't flood this time.  Water had been getting in when the rain got so intense that the gutters overflowed and dumped water right at the back door.  I cleaned the gutters but that didn't help.

I got up on a ladder yesterday to get a close look at what was happening.  The gutter over the back door is supposed to direct water away from the door and toward the downspout, but for some reason the flow was going in the wrong direction and toward the door, not toward the downspout.  Then, when the gutter filled with water during peak rainfall, it would overflow and rainwater got in beneath the door and into my kitchen.  

I cleaned the gutter again to make sure that nothing was impeding the flow toward the downspout, and then I drove in a few more nails to keep the gutter from sagging in the wrong direction when the weight of water got too heavy.  When I was done with that, I rolled up a few trusty t-shirts and tightly packed them at the base of the back door in case my little engineering project didn't work.  

It did, or at least the kitchen didn't flood, but I don't know if it was because of my improvements or simply because the rain, while persistent, was never intense enough to completely fill the gutters.  Still, the t-shirt were damp by the end of the day - not saturated like on Tuesday but wet enough to indicate that some water had still gotten through.  

Hopefully, we'll finally get a window of clear weather soon so that my contractor can come in and finally replace the roof.  I've "only" been waiting a week, but with the tension of the flooding and the general unpleasantness of the weather, it's felt like an eternity.

Zen Master Dogen would remind me that flowers, while cherished, fade and weeds, although despised, flourish.

It's a plot, I tell you!  A conspiracy!  The forces that be are colluding to keep me from going out to shows at night!

The last show I've been to was the band Big Thief at Variety Playhouse back last November.  I didn't go to any shows in the second half of November, all of December and January, or the first half of February.

It was mostly scheduling and my own taste in music that kept me from shows for that period, but most bands don't tour between Thanksgiving the New Years, anyway.  Last week, though, I was looking forward to ending the drought and seeing the Shreveport band Seratones at the venerable Earl.

But on the day of the performance, a notice was posted on the Earl's web site that due to a death in the family, Seratones were postponing the night's show so they could tend to affairs. The show's been rescheduled for late June.

Damn.  I know my inconvenience doesn't even belong in the same league as the grief the musicians are dealing with, but after waiting all those months, I was anxious to get back out again.  So it goes.

Last night, I had a ticket to see the band Lower Dens, again at The Earl.  I didn't go.

The rain was falling so intensely last night that I wasn't looking forward to going outside at all.  I'd get soaked between the front door and the car, much less between the parking lot and The Earl. And Atlanta traffic is horrible in the rain.  According to Google maps, driving time to The Earl, which is a mere eight miles away, was 45 minutes due to the rain-clogged traffic.

Still, a little rain hasn't stopped me from going out to other shows, and I was still considering braving the elements and the traffic.  That's when water started coming back underneath my kitchen door again and flooding the floor.  I used some old t-shirts as rags to dam the gap beneath the door and soak up water, but it didn't take long for the shirts to get saturated and the floodwaters to break through.  

I put some other shirts down in their place and threw the wet ones in  the dryer. By the time they were dry, the new shirts on the floor were saturated and needed replacement.  For then next couple of hours, I was running the dryer constantly and cycling t-shirts between the kitchen door and the dryer.  

I didn't want to leave and let the elements do what they willed to my kitchen, especially if it meant sitting in traffic for 45 minutes in that abysmal downpour.  Even if it meant missing Lower Dens and kissing off the $18 for the ticket.

The water has been getting in beneath the door when the rain gets so intense that the gutters overflow and start dumping water right at the back door.  Yes, I've cleaned the gutters, but I really need new ones and can't replace them until the new roof is installed, which in turn can't be done until it finally stops raining.

And there's no end in sight.  According to the NWS, 2.5 inches of rain fell yesterday alone, and other than sun forecast for Friday and Saturday, nothing but rain and more rain is in the forecast for the next 10 days.  To make it even more frustrating, the national radar maps shows the skies over the entire rest of the United States to be clear, except for one persistent train of wet weather extending from west Texas to North Carolina dumping record amounts of rain on Atlanta and north Georgia.

I've got tickets to still another show Saturday night, and so far the forecast is still looking favorable for that night.  Barring another death in the family or a surprise change of weather, I might finally make it out.

I wasn't planning about blogging about the weather again, even though we're now forecast for another three straight days of solid rain.  I was planning on ignoring the weather and talking about something, anything, else, but then I see that even the National Weather Service is bugging out and starting to reference Cthulhu in their Twitter feed.

Before invoking the Grand Old One, you can hear the near-existential resignation in their voice:  "It's going to rain" (period). "Again" (period).  

"We have accepted our fate and are preparing for the second coming of Cthulhu" (period).

After four straight days of rain last week, we had two sunny days last Friday and Saturday.  Then it was overcast and cloudy but didn't actually rain on Sunday and Monday.  Now, the forecast is for more rain Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, followed by another sunny Friday and Saturday, and then five more days of rain and/or overcast skies.  It never stops and is showing no sign of being over anytime soon.

We've had six inches of rain so far this month and 14.01 inches since January 1, twice the average of 7.05 inches normal for this time of the year.  Lake Lanier, Georgia's principal reservoir, is at its highest level since 1964.

As noted before, I have a contractor lined up to replace my leaky roof, but he can't come out here and start removing the existing shingles until the rain finally stops and at this point, neither he nor I nor anyone else has the slightest idea when that might be. 

I might as well join the NWS and just resign myself to the inevitable return of our lord Cthulhu.

Presidents' Day

When I've encountered British tourists in Europe, they tell me they're "on holiday," which surprises me as it's an etymologically suspect way of phrasing it, especially for the bearers of the native tongue.  "Holiday" is derived from holy day, and a fortnight in Torremolinos is hardly an observance of the divine.  Americans say we're "on vacation," which is correct, as we are temporarily vacating our homes and our jobs.

Whatever.  It's Presidents' Day today, also known as Washington's Birthday in honor of George Washington, who was born on a February 22. As Abraham Lincoln was born on a February 12, their birthdays have been combined into a  single Presidents' Day on the third Monday of each February to honor all U.S. presidents (even you-know-who).  

It's a holiday, but it isn't a holy day.  It's a celebration of nationalism, which is fine, which is fitting, which is appropriate.  But it's not a celebration of the divine.  Let's not kid ourselves.

There are plenty of religious holidays, just as there are plenty of religions.  However, in modern societies, those W.E.I.R.D. cultures (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic), the religious holidays are becoming more and more secularized.  Christmas  has basically become a celebration of capitalism, a time of conspicuous consumption and gift-giving, and Easter has largely been reduced to a display of fashion.  

Halloween is becoming increasingly popular with every passing year. Here in Atlanta, in addition to the rite of trick-or-treating, it's celebrated with parades, parties, visits to haunted-house rides, movie screenings, and by wearing outrageous outfits to work one day a year, but few people anymore even know why it's a holiday or why it's observed on October 31.  It's just an excuse to party and get freaky for one night.

The holidays most cherished by people living in W.E.I.R.D. cultures are usually egocentric.  We celebrate our own birthdays, our weddings, and the anniversaries of our weddings.  We celebrate graduations and bar mitzvahs and other rites-of-passage (e.g., Sweet Sixteen).    We spend the most time and put our most celebratory energies into ourselves.

We usually don't recognize the annual occurrences of events bigger than ourselves.  We scarcely recognize summer and winter solstices or vernal and autumnal equinoxes.   The start and end of Daylight Savings Time, the so-called spring-forward and fall-back days, get more recognition, and those occurrences are usually despised more than celebrated.  Full and new moons are still depicted on most calendars, but other than astrologers and lycanthropes, nobody really gives them much consideration.  

If the holiday isn't specifically about us, our birth, our marriage, etc., or about our nation or our religion, we don't pay it much mind.  We don't celebrate monarch butterflies returning from their winters in Mexico or the passing of migratory birds.  Even though we even have a song about it, the celebration of the return of the swallows to Capistrano is really only celebrated in certain coastal Californian communities, mainly Capistrano.  We don't celebrate the return of salmon to the streams or the appearance of the first ripe pumpkin in the vineyard (the annual roll-out of Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte doesn't count). 

You might ask, "What about Groundhog Day?", to which I would reply, "Yeah, what about Groundhog Day?  Is there a holiday more out of touch with both science and nature than Groundhog Day?"

Instead of ourselves, and in addition to the solstices and equinoxes, we could celebrate those great events in intellectual history, say, the November 24, 1859 publication of The Origin of Species.  Instead of Presidents' Day, we could set aside the third Monday of each February to commemorate the February 19, 1963 publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique.   

Zen Master Dogen wrote Bendowa, the first fascicle of his Shobogenzo, on October 1, 1231.  Coincidentally, that date is also the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.  Reason enough right there for an annual October 1 holiday

We could celebrate June 15 for the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, or March 10 for Alexander Graham Bell's first telephone call in 1876. 

We can set aside August 30 of each year to observe the 1965 release of Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, or September 10 to observe the 1999 premier of the movie Fight Club.  

We can celebrate February 12 each year, maybe even combine it with the third Monday of February anniversary of the publication of The Feminine Mystique, for the 1993 world premier of the movie Groundhog Day.  

Or better yet, we could observe each September 21 for Bill Murray's birthday.  In consideration of one of his films, we could call it St. Vincent's Day.  Annie Clark, who records under the name St. Vincent, was born on a September 28, so perhaps we should set aside the third Monday of September and call it St. Vincent's Day for both Bill Murray and Annie Clark.

Far Cry 3

I finished the game Far Cry 3 today.  According to the conventions of video games, that means I finally won the climactic boss fight, completed a daring escape from enemy territory, and made some final decisions affecting the outcome of the game. 

I started playing back on January 27 and according to the in-game stats, I played for about 62 hours. According to the Steam statistics though, the game took me 102 hours to complete.  The difference is probably that the game only counted my forward progress, while Steam counted all the time I spent trying and re-trying every task until I was finally successful.

Alert readers may recall that the game was part of a bundle I purchased back last Thanksgiving, when I took advantage of a Steam sale and bought six new games all for the price of one new, first-run game.  Having already completed Hitman (2016) and another Far Cry game, New Dawn, from that same bundle, I'm now halfway through the package.    

This was the fourth Far Cry game that I've played.  I previously played Far Cry 4 and 5, as well as the sequel to Far Cry 5, the aforementioned New Dawn.  3 came out back in 2012 and I was a little apprehensive about the age of the game (eight is an eternity in video-game years).  However, it played fine and even though it didn't have some of the innovations  of later Far Cry games (in-game companions, unusual weapons, complex skills systems, etc.), the experience was fine.  In fact, it could be argued that without a lot of the so-called improvements distracting from the actual game-play itself, Far Cry 3 delivered a more immersive experience.  

The story (no spoilers) basically has you, the player, as one of a group of friends vacationing on a South Pacific island when you accidentally sky-dive into pirates' territory.  Your friends are taken hostage but you escape, and the game involves you rescuing your buddies one by one, while fighting the small army of pirates and mercenaries encamped on the island.  You get around the island by driving jeeps and ATVs, hang gliders and wing suits, inflatable rafts and jet skis.  Fun!  Oh, and the island has tigers, jaguars, bears, sharks, and other predators, too, so mere survival is another whole challenge.  

As your character fights his way across the island, he is changed by the experience as well, becoming more feral, more reckless, and nearly unrecognizable to the friends he's saving. Each chapter of the game starts with a quote from Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland, reflecting your character's gradual descent into madness. Sure, the story isn't Shakespeare but it's enough to keep you playing and overtaking outpost after outpost, and exploration of the beautiful island "paradise" alone makes the game a compelling experience.

The lead villain, Vaas (shown above), is played by the actor Michael Mando, who portrays bad-guy Nacho Varga in the television series, Better Call Saul.  On a side note, I'm currently binge-watching the four seasons of BCS in preparation of the premiere of Season 5 in two weeks, so I'm getting maximum Mando exposure right now.  

I have three more games queued up in my Steam bundle yet to be played.  I'm not sure which game I'll play next but in any event, I might take a short break before leaping into the next.

Dreaming of the Masters

One of America's leading liberal arts colleges, Haverford is a close-knit intellectual community located on a serene campus just outside Sun Ra's home base of Philadelphia.

Sun Ra's 1980 solo set at Haverford has been kicking around the internet and in the digital libraries of Ra collectors for years. It has not previously been commercially released, nor has there been any (known) diligent attempt to upgrade the fidelity. However, journalist, music historian, radio personality, record producer, and self-described "landmark preservationist" Irwin Chusid has recently taken actions on both counts.  According to Chusid:

This is a very unique performance. Sun Ra is notorious for his aggressive keyboard attack and seemingly schizophrenic stylings—which can musically go from A to Z and back to A without transitional bridges. This set offers a marked contrast. Ra's instrument of choice here is the celeste-like Fender Rhodes electric piano, which has a distinct sound (instantly recognizable in the Doors' Riders on the Storm). . . There are few pyrotechnics in this performance, and much restraint. Ra sounds relaxed and contemplative. It's soothing sounds for Saturnians.

I know the long run of Sun Ra-exclusive DOTM posts has ended, but that doesn't mean we can't still enjoy a little taste of his music from time to time.

Sun!

I woke up this morning with the sun streaming into the bedroom and onto my pillow.  What a glorious feeling!  Sun!

Cold?  You bet!  But dude, the sun!  No rain, not even any clouds.  I can't express how much better that had me feeling.

Whatever problems I had this week seemed somehow more manageable.  Nothing I can't handle - roof, condo, taxes, old age, even eventual death.  Just stop with the incessant downpour already!

The sun has already set as I write this, but it's forecast to be clear and sunny again tomorrow.  After that, the forecast keeps changing, but it basically consists of five to six days that will range from cloudy and overcast to rain and thunderstorms. Most likely, I'm in for at least another four days of rain, but at least I have these two sweet days of sunshine and a new roof on its way.

Day Four

It worked - the silicone gel sealant on the roof held and when the torrential rains hit early this morning (very early this morning), water did not leak through.

Still, the kitchen floor was flooded - the rain came down so heavily at times that it overwhelmed the gutter and leaked in from beneath the back door.  The floor was soaked and I had to I mop it up before I even had my morning coffee. I did use the occasion, though, as an excuse to deep clean the kitchen floor (it needed it).

By 10:00 am, the rain finally stopped and the forecast is now for two whole days of sunny skies.  No more rain until Sunday.

It's been a wild roller-coaster ride on temperature though - last weekend it actually snowed in the North Georgia Mountains and parts of metro Atlanta (didn't see any white stuff here), but then yesterday temperatures hit the 70s.  Now, it's chilly outside once again and the temperature will drop down into the low 30s tonight.  

After two days of sun, the rest of the extended forecast is for nothing but more rain Sunday through to at least next Saturday, with even a chance of snow on that Saturday.  After that is anybody's guess - we're out beyond the 10-day forecast at that point.  

I selected a contractor to replace my roof, but with all of the rain in the forecast, he's not sure when he can make it out here to actually do the job.  He has one home on schedule ahead of me, but until this soggy weather system finally clears out, he can't schedule a date to come do my work here.

Patience (breathe in).  Patience (breathe out).

Peace of Mind

Finally lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness, I reached out to some roofing contractors today.

Day Three of the Four Days of Rain hardly seemed a worthy contender at all.  For starters, it didn't rain and the sun actually came out this afternoon and I got to take my Beltline walk for the first time this month. But heavy rain is forecast for late tonight and well into tomorrow morning.

Yesterday, I used the Nextdoor app to ask my neighbors if they knew of any good roofing contractors.  I got several responses, including two separate and enthusiastic thumbs up for one in particular. I'm waiting on bids from three of the contractors, but the one that was highly recommended took the extra step of stopping by this afternoon and he got up on the roof, quickly identified the source of the leak (a loose nail in one shingle), and sealed it up with silicone.  He had blue tarp with him to cover it if needed, but be was confident that the silicone will keep the water out until I get him or some other contractor to replace the roof.

No charge for his service today.  No wonder he was so highly recommended.

So the process has begun and soon I'll be the proud owner of a new roof over this pile of bricks up on a hill. But the best part is the peace of mind I feel now that someone who knows more about roofs than I do looked at mine and did something to fix the problem.  There's still falling trees and power losses to consider, nothing I can do there, but at least now I don't have to worry about leaks in the house or the smell of mildew.

I never knew I could get so much peace of mind from just a couple dabs of silicone caulk.

The ROM Is Blogging About the Weather Again

Today was Day Two of the 4-day rain event forecast for Georgia.  About an inch and a half fell yesterday, most of it seemingly coming down between about 6:30 and 7:30 last night.  The rain was somewhat less intense today but it was hardly a dry one.   

This low-pressure system is forecast to hang around for two more days, and then we're supposed to finally get some sun on Friday and Saturday.  But after that, the forecast is for five more days of rain.  

We've had twelve and a half inches of rain since the beginning of the year, which is twice the normal amount. The soil is supersaturated and rivers are near flood stage .  I've been cooped up in the house worrying about my leaky roof and haven't been able to take my daily walks along the Beltline trail. The house is starting to smell of mildew.

To be honest, this weather kind of sucks.

Candlelight Again

One of the hardest things about maintaining a blog and posting something on a daily basis is not succumbing to the temptation to constantly talk about the weather.  But sometimes the weather refuses to cooperate with my little self-imposed rule and behaves so outrageously that it can't be ignored.

As background, alert readers may recall that a couple days before Christmas last year, a tree fell down in the neighborhood and knocked out power for some eight hours or so and left me without cable or internet for three days.  The sawed-up trunk of the tree is still waiting to be carried away, laying on the side of the road and even partially blocking one lane, and the neighbor whose tree it was apparently is fine with the overturned stump and root system sticking up in the air in his front yard. It's a daily reminder to all who live around here of what happened last December.  

Then last week, a violent storm whipped through the South.  I fully expected to lose power during the high winds and torrential rains, but to my surprise, although some trees did fall down around here, none were on my property and the ones that did fall didn't take power lines down with them.  I managed to ride out that storm fully powered.

Last week's storms were due to a cold front blowing through and after the front had passed, temperatures fell below freezing for a few days.  I didn't get any snow here at my house, but it did fall last weekend in parts of metro Atlanta and even more so up in the North Georgia Mountains.  For a few days, this is what parts of Georgia looked like (not my pictures; the photos from the r/Atlanta subReddit):

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Naturally, this being Georgia, it all melted away by the next day.  Last night, Sunday evening, temperatures returned to the 40s and 50s typical for this time of year, and for once it wasn't raining.  It was a cool, clear night.

So imagine my surprise when the power suddenly went off at 10:40 pm.  I looked out the window and saw the yellow flashing caution lights of utility trucks down the road, so I went out to investigate.

It turns out that yet another tree had fallen, this one up against a power pole.  It didn't take the lines down with it, but the servicemen had to turn off the power to remove the tree and repair the pole.  I was in the dark - well, by candlelight (top pic) - for an hour before my power was restored.

This morning, I went out to investigate what had happened and saw the fallen trunk and limbs lying on both sides of the road.

Two takeaways here - first, the tree that fell was on the edge of a small ravine formed by a tributary to Tanyard Creek, and the tree fell, not downslope into the ravine, but in an upslope direction. Apparently, it wouldn't have caused enough damage if it had fallen down into the ravine (no power lines to disrupt down there).

Second, since those logs in the first picture are technically on City of Atlanta property (the ravine is undeveloped parkland), only the City has the authority to remove them, and like the other tree trunk already down on the road, they'll probably remain there for quite some while, reminding us of the damage and the tenuous status of our electrical supply.

But wait, there's more!  While I was out this morning assessing last night's damage, I saw a crew in the neighborhood taking down yet another tree, this one leaning perilously toward a friend and neighbor's house.  I hadn't noticed that particular tree leaning before, but am glad my neighbor is taking it down before it damages her house (and possibly her).

What's going on here?  Trees are falling down around here on an almost monthly basis.  This isn't normal.  Zen Master Dogen talked about "the mind of trees and grasses," and whatever that mind might be like, what is going through it lately that the trees basically have decided to lay siege to the neighborhood?    

Is this the inevitable result of development occurring around here about a century ago, and the trees just now reaching the end of their natural life cycles?  Is this some result of urbanization, some combination of wildlife loss and air, noise, and light pollution taking its toll on the trees?  Is climate change somehow exacerbating this process? 

Up to now, I had been worried about falling trees every time we've had bad weather, and rain is forecast for eight of the next ten days.  But lately, trees have been falling even when the weather isn't inclement, so I can now worry about trees all of the time.  At least it's teaching me not to take electricity and the steady supply of power for granted anymore.

To close on a positive note, here's a picture from this morning of that tributary to Tanyard Creek that's now city parkland running through my neighborhood.  This is quite literally across the street from my house.  It's lovely, and  a reminder of why I continue to live here despite the dangers and inconveniences of falling trees.

Make America Great Again

If we're going to be fond of the past, let's go way back to the far past - 77 million years ago when T. rex still roamed the land, CO2 in the atmosphere was well over 400 ppm and nobody complained,  and no one paid any taxes to anyone.  

A modest proposal:  unless the land on which you reside wasn't literally underwater during the Late Cretaceous, you don't get to be part of the modern-day United States.  If you weren't part of the country then, you're technically an immigrant (actually, since your land later emerged from the sea, you're technically an "emergrant"),

This proposal would eliminate the big California cities, as well as Washington DC and New York (but leave in Boston).  We would keep Pittsburgh but lose Philly.  We'd keep Atlanta and the north Georgia mountains, but drop most of the rest of the Deep South.  No more Florida, no more Louisiana.  We'd lose Houston but somehow still keep Dallas, and almost entirely eliminate Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the two Dakotas.

In fact, it could result in two separate countries, Appalachia to the east and Laramidia to the west, and other than the island of Llano, everything in between a vast wasteland.

Maga, mofos, maga.

Dreaming of the Masters

Jazz genius Anthony Braxton (who will be performing at Big Ears this year) does not play on this album, but he composed all the music and conducts the Creative Orchestra.  

The members of the Creative Orchestra are Dwight Andrews, Marty Ehrlich, Vinny Golia, JD Parran, and Ned Rothenberg (saxophone, clarinet, flute, and piccolo); Rob Howard, Michael Mossman, Wadada Leo Smith, and Kenny Wheeler (trumpet); Ray Anderson, George Lewis, and James King Roosa (trombone and tuba); Marilyn Crispell (piano); Birgit Taubhorn (accordion); Bobby Naughton (vibraphone); James Emery (electric guitar); John Lindberg and Brian Smith (bass); Thurman Barker (marimba and percussion); and Robert Ostertag (synthesizer).  

As the title states, it was recorded in Köln in 1978.

Here's the opening cut, Language Improvisations.

Le Mystère de la Kora de Sissoko

Back in November 2013, when I saw the band Thee Oh Sees perform at Terminal West in Atlanta, I noticed a note taped inside of frontman John Dwyer's guitar case.

"Dear Luggage Inspector," the note read.  "If you open this guitar case, please close it properly.  It's my life.  Thank you very much."

I don't know what prompted Dwyer to write the note, but I have to believe it wasn't entirely preemptive.  It's hard not to imagine that someone somewhere did not properly close the case after an inspection and that Dwyer, a professional musician whose livelihood depends on his instrument, experienced some degree of loss and/or damage.

In today's news, Malian musician Ballaké Sissoko is claiming that following a flight from JFK to Paris, the TSA destroyed his kora.  A kora is a 21-string Mandinka harp built from a large calabash gourd cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator and with a long hardwood neck. Sissoko and other musicians from Mali perform beautifully complex music with the instrument in a truly unique and wonderful tradition native to sub-Saharan Africa.  

The kora and Mali's musical heritage are so culturally significant to the region that jihadists have threatened to destroy the instruments and cut the tongues out of singers.  Sissoko lives in Paris and has evaded the jihadists, but when he arrived home from his American tour and opened the case to his kora, he found it destroyed.   The instrument was in pieces, the neck ripped from the body, the strings yanked, and the bridge taken off the leather soundboard.  Inside the case was what appeared to be a TSA advisory, written in Spanish, saying that the case had been picked for a physical inspection to search for “prohibited items.” 

The TSA denies opening the case, alleging that the case was screened with a scanner and since no alarms were triggered it passed through security without being opened.  But someone somewhere along the line must have opened the case, because this type of damage doesn't just happen "in transit."

John Dwyer's note in his guitar case is testament to the fact that instruments do get damaged by baggage inspectors.  On top of that, Trump has recently announced an expansion of his racist travel ban that will exclude all Nigerians from entering the country.  Ballaké Sissoko's name, while Malian and not Nigerian, just might have sounded exotic enough to some over-zealous TSA employee that he opened the case anyway in spite of it passing the screening and dissembled the instrument looking for contraband, explosives, drugs, anything (the note said they were looking for "prohibited items").  

Frankly, that theory sounds more plausible to me than the instrument just dissembled itself in transit.

Nervous

Getting a good night's sleep has long been a problem of mine, but then last night thunderstorms came rattling through, waking me up and then keeping me worried about falling trees, power loss, a leaking roof, etc.  That's when my phone started to go off with flash-flood warnings.

It rained all night, occasionally hard, occasionally with thunder, and it's still raining all day today. They're forecasting 3 to 4 inches of rain and the flash flood warnings are still in effect. 100% chance of rain all afternoon until at least 5:00 pm, and then 25-50% chance overnight though to tomorrow afternoon.  

After four or five hours of sleepless night, the alarm clock finally kicked on with NPR news talking about tornado warnings and tornado watches all across Georgia, including Atlanta.  I got up and turned on the Weather Channel, and naturally they were saying the same.  The cats are huddled in the main bathroom, the "safe spot" in my house with no exterior walls.  If a tornado were to strike here, I would curl up in the fetal position in the bathtub.

The good news is that by now, the worst of the storm has passed.  The winds have died down considerably, and the intense rains are more sporadic than earlier.  I didn't lose power or the internet (yet, knock on wood).   The only real damage so far is that I'm running on about two hours sleep, and I'm still too nervous about the storm to get in a decent nap today.

It's supposed to clear up this weekend, but after Sunday, they're predicting more thunderstorms for 9 of the next 10 days, so there's that to look forward to.

Update:  Still no trees falling on my house or my power lines, but look what happened this morning on the Perimeter (I-285).  Watch the right side of the screen during the first couple of seconds:

Mitt

In 2016, Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham (among others) all publicly declared Donald Trump unfit for public office, a menace to American politics, a scoundrel,  a liar, and a cheat.  

In 2020, all Senate Republicans except for Mitt Romney voted to acquit Trump of the articles of impeachment against him.  Funny how Cruz, Rubio, Paul and Graham changed their opinions about Trump in the years since he's been in power.  Lindsey Graham even declared that he had no intention of being an impartial juror.  But Mitt Romney stood alone among Republicans and voted consistent with his oath of office and his morals.

In 2012, I thought that presidential candidate Mitt Romney was the worst person in politics.  Funny  how much Mitt must had changed in the eight years since then.

STFU

I couldn't get myself to actually watch it (I binge-watched Episodes 8 through 10 of Netflix' Sense8 instead), but I'm told that during last night's State of the Union address, Trump claimed credit for a “great American comeback,” contrasting his alleged successes with the records of his predecessors.

“In just three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline and we have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny,” Trump said. “We have totally rejected the downsizing. We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago, and we are never, ever going back!”

Am I the only one who remembers that America was most decidedly not in decline when Trump took office?  Let's talk facts, not rhetoric:  under the Obama administration, corporate profits and the stock market reached record levels while inflation and interest rates remained near record low levels.  A moderate tax increase was imposed on higher income Americans, universal health care was enacted, and the budget deficit was significantly reduced, as was income inequality. Bush's Great Recession and the subprime mortgage crisis were both overcome during Obama's first term, and as the economy improved and job creation continued during his second, a spending cap was implemented to further reduce the deficit back to historical levels. 

Trump has an obsessive, near pathological hatred for Obama and has done everything he can to rewrite history in his own favor.  To be perfectly clear: there was no "American decline" at the time Trump took office and there was no "downsizing of America's destiny."  Trump's "American carnage" SOTU address of 2016 was a fictional concept and if anything, America is now more isolated than before Trump took office, we have fewer military and economic allies, income inequality has gotten worse, and the erosion of environmental controls and the failure to address climate change will haunt this country for decades to come.  Trump's term has been a failed presidency by any rational measurement.

The entire SOTU address was predicated on a big, fat lie - we were not in decline before, and we are most decidedly not getting better now.

Worse yet was Trump awarding a Medal of Freedom during the speech to the divisive conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh.  Limbaugh's racist, sexist, bullying broadcasts over the past several decades have done as much as anything else to polarize our politics and cause one side to demonize the other. Awarding him the same honor that had gone to Elie Wiesel, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa was the worst decision since Bush gave one to Bill Cosby.  

It was a move that is being widely praised by the far right and roundly booed by the left.  It was a move calculated to further divide, not unite, the country. It shows that Trump has no interest in even pretending to heal the partisan divides separating our nation.  Imagine if Obama had awarded a Medal of Freedom at a SOTU address to, say, Michael Moore or Rev. Al Sharpton.      

I'm glad I didn't watch the speech, and I'm glad that the remainder of Trump's presidency will be measured in months and not years.

Atlanta

A few cityscape photographs of Atlanta from the subReddit r/Atlanta just to remind myself how beautiful is the city in which I live.

Ugh! Geography and Math!

According to which poll you look at, anywhere from 70% to 75% of the American public wanted the Senate trial of Donald Trump to have witnesses testify and have real, actual evidence considered, rather than just be a referendum on the Senators' general opinion on the relative merits of impeachment. 

70 to 75 percent of the country no longer agrees on almost anything.  That preference is almost overwhelming by today's standards, and yet last Friday the Senate voted 51-49 against having witnesses testify.  In essence, they voted not to have a real trial at all, at least not one that considers actual evidence, and instead opted to proceed with dismissal of the case exclusively along party lines.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out that the 49 Senators who voted for hearing testimony actually represent 19 million more people than the 51 Senators who voted against testimony.  In actual fact, the outcome of the Senate vote did not represent the will of the majority.

California alone has a population of nearly 40 million people, but like every state has but two Senators.  By contrast, the northwestern quadrant of the country, shaded green above, consists of 15 states (Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming) which contain a total of about 40 million people.  Those 15 states collectively have 30 Senators, so the 40 million people in those states are represented by 15 times more votes in the Senate than the 40 million people in California.

Each of the different colored areas in the map above contain a population roughly that of California. Each area contains about 40 million people, and each area other than California contains anywhere from four to 14 states and eight to 28 Senate votes.

The point here is obvious - the vote of the Senate does not necessarily represent the will of the population, but is heavily weighted toward sparsely-populated, rural states.  Your vote counts for more if you live in the country than if you live in a city.

Wyoming, the least populated state, has about 560,000 people.  That's one Senate vote for every 280,000 Wyoming residents, and one Senate vote for every 20 million Californians.  Wyomingites are 100 times more represented in the Senate than Californians.

Washington DC has a population of 700,000 people, far more people than in Wyoming, and no Senate votes.  3.2 Million Americans, more than the entire population of Iowa, live in Puerto Rico and have no Senate votes either.

And why are there two Dakotas?  Together, the states have a population less than that of rural West Virginia, but twice as many Senate votes.

The 60 Senators from the 30 least populous states represent only 25% of the nation's population.  The remaining 75% of Americans are represented by only 40 Senators.  I'm not saying that every small-state Senator voted against testimony and every large-state Senator voted for it, but 70-75% of Americans wanted a proper trial.  

This kind of representation disparity is clearly something the Founding Fathers in the 13 original colonies couldn't have foreseen.  It's undemocratic, and the results of last Friday's Senate vote are a symptom of this particular malady.

In theory, the House of Representatives is supposed to make up for the population disparities that occur in the Senate, but even there the smaller states are over-represented.  Ditto the electoral college.

Remember this on Election Day, November 3, 2020.  The Electoral College may be weighted against you, but if we vote in enough numbers, we can still make a difference.

On another note, another car burst into flames this morning on Atlanta's Interstate 85, very close to the site of Saturday's fiery wreck and my breakdown last year.  This would have been my morning commute had I still been working.  This could have been me.