go to the dump*

A recent commentary on Marketplace by Mary Annette Pember made me think of that book I'd mentioned a short while back, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 by David Edgerton, and the one by Janisse Ray I mentioned just two shakes ago.

The first because of the differing views of technology. The current and predominant "innovation-centric" view that's heavily weighted toward *NEW*NEW*NEW* vs. a "use-centered" view that takes into account which technologies have had staying power and how and why they've stayed around. The first view would show that most developing countries sorely lack in technological prowess or contribution. The latter would recognize resourcefulness—the ability to take what we'd consider and outdated or out-of-fashion technology and maintain it and keep it relevant.

The second because Janisse Ray's father and his customers exemplified this ingenious ability.

All three recognize the value in technologies or items that get used again and again because they fill a need and do it well. They give due credit to the ingenuity of local populations that make these and other technologies work because there is no other accessible option.

Interesting that there's a movement that's striving for the same thing.

One person's trash is another's treasure. One person's choice is another's necessity.

[*This was a card game I played growing up and later learned that most other people call it "Go Fish":
"Do you have an Ace?"
"No. Go to the dump."]

i'm not a witch! i'm not a witch!

I'm a neo-pagan. Totally different.
Well, at least according to this I'd qualify. I tried to deny it, but after three tries and 100% each time...? With each pass, I did become more compatible with Unitarian Universalists and New Agers, but less with Mahayana Buddhists. Here's the top 5 of the final rundown:

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (99%)
3. New Age (94%)
4. Liberal Quakers (90%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (78%)

The logic's not nearly as well reasoned as Sir Bedevere's, but worth contemplating nonetheless.

Neo-paganism seems to be a catch-all, and I can jive with that. I looked over the info on it, though, and I don't really relate with much else. I'm not in for ceremony...especially those that take place in circular formations and involve hand holding. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but that's enough for me to self-disqualify.

I think I have Alice Walker to blame for my pagan leanings. I've sampled different faiths, but nothing ever rang more true to me than Shug Avery's explanation of God:

God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.
. . .
It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything. . . . Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.
. . .
Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that the trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?

To quote Celie, "Amen." If I needed a stand-in for the Bible, The Color Purple would be it.

Note the animism vein. Even so. I just don't wish to associate with things magickal. [The "k". Is it really necessary? All it conjures for me is obnoxious spellings like "kwik".]

Now for some levity (e.g. very small rocks):



[Thank you, Hillbilly, Please, for helping me uncover my pagan inclinations.]

as if a photo was needed

Jeffrey Pippen, "Longleaf Pine Savannah at the Green Swamp, NC - 29 May 2003"

In a longleaf forest, miles of trees forever fade into a brilliant salmon sunset and reappear the next dawn as a battalion marching out of fog. The tip of each needle carries a single drop of silver. The trees are so well spaced that their limbs seldom touch and sunlight streams between and within them.

I'm just over half-way through rereading Janisse Ray's Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, about her childhood and the astonishing loss of longleaf pine forest in the southeast of the U.S.

This was not a loss I knew as a child. Longleaf was a word I never heard. But it is a loss that as an adult shadows every step I take. I am daily aghast at how much we have taken, since it does not belong to us, and how much as a people we have suffered in consequence.

Not long ago I dreamed of actually cradling a place, as if something so amorphous and vague as a region, existing mostly in imagination and idea, suddenly took form. I held its shrunken relief in my arms, a baby smelted from a plastic topography map, and when I gazed down into its face, as my father had gazed into mine, I saw the pine flatwoods of my homeland.

She is an amazing writer.

dysfunction junction

The point at which feverish quest for prestige and upward mobility meets dwindling or otherwise anemic experiential knowledge. Commonly associated with a dissonant delusion of omniscience.

That one I made up. This one I did not.

Prestige:
1 : standing or estimation in the eyes of people : weight or credit in general opinion 2 : commanding position in people's minds

Etymology:

French, from Middle French, conjuror's trick, illusion, from Latin praestigiae, plural, conjuror's tricks, from praestringere to graze, blunt, constrict, from prae- + stringere to bind tight...

I love words. I could kiss that etymology.

spaghetti with mary and gene

I've explained previously the heart and effort that my grandparents put into these fund raiser dinners. Never ceases to amaze. I decided I had to photo-document it.

This time it was hoppin', and so, as a consequence, were my grandparents. Someone (not them) had the brilliant idea of having a silent auction during the dinner. People wanted to get their bids in under the wire, and results were announced at the end, so the crowd never thinned and my grandmother never sat down to eat. 4 hours. She's a lean mean hostess machine.

There she is in white shirt and black pants, her young protégé walking behind. I was introduced to the mentee shortly after I arrived. Grandma was very happy to report that they've been getting more, younger volunteers. They even had two people vying for the plate scraping job. Unheard of.

My great aunt and uncle came this time, too. Very different personalities between sisters, but both endearing. When asked by a member of the congregation if we enjoyed the dinner, I provided the polite, "Yes, thank you." Marge said, "Well, it's not how I make spaghetti at home, but... Couldn't you put some spices in there?" I had to stifle a guffaw. Mary prays for souls; Marge provides comic relief.

Despite the hullabaloo and much to my grandma's chagrin, many of the silent auction items were left without a bid. The kitchen closed at 3 pm sharp, and so commenced the tear down. Within an hour of my arrival, it was as if nary a meatball had been served. There's Grandpa Gene: white head and black sweater vest.
In one of several trips to the car with my grandma and Marge to load the centerpieces (which my grandparents supplied once again), my great uncle commented to an on-looker, "Jeez, you don't think they're related, do ya?", and so prompted the last photo shot by him at my request. Yes, very related. Couldn't be prouder. (See? The boogie monster's not so scary.)

My grandparents do this—and many, many other things—for the church out of duty and devotion, not in hopes of heavenly reward. So, on their behalf, I hope that when they've passed to the great beyond someone else waits on them hand and foot. I'd be honored to do it...if I'm not caught and booted out, that is.

from "Return"

by Carolyn Forché

Your problem is not your life as it is
in America, not that your hands, as you
tell me, are tied to do something. It is
that you were born to an island of greed
and grace where you have this sense
of yourself as apart from others. It is
not your right to feel powerless. Better
people than you were powerless.
You have not returned to your country,
but to a life you never left.

in The Country Between Us.

The full poem is long and striking. The whole collection will knock you off your feet.

straight jazz became hot

Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli and the Quintette du Hot Club de France:



I love that grin.

go ahead. dance a jig.

You won't be surprised at my praise for most anything Paul Simon. Most assuredly you won't be surprised that I love the instrumental "Hobo's Blues," a small but potent dose of bliss. I cannot sit still when it's playing. I found this version to share, and while it does fall short of greatness (she knows it too, note the closing interjection), it's a valiant effort, and it'll still make you boogie. Don't hold back—no one's looking.



I took a closer look at the credits for "Hobo's Blues," from the first solo album* released in the U.S., and spotted the name Stéphane Grappelli (see him smile when he plays). Those of you in the know will be saddened to know—I am saddened to know—that I had not heard of this man before. Believe me, I'm hot on the trail of correcting this mammoth oversight.

[*Thank you to Liz. I first heard this album when you purchased it for your parents.]