Linda Robinson's Blog, page 4

The Patriot 2019

I drew this in Powerpoint on 12 September 2001. The day before changed America forever. Horrified, saddened and lost, I mourned what was to come from that day onward for my country.

The day after.

A woman on a panel recently said we are obsessed with punishment. With revenge, even if it is practiced without heed to justice. I forget if she meant Americans or humanity.

We woke on the next morning to a global war on terrorism. To more slaughter and jangling patriotism and children and their mothers around the world barely surviving in an apocalyptic aftermath of our righteous battle.

People who spoke to the idea that violence begets violence lost their jobs, were vilified and careers destroyed.

18 years later. We are at war on 17 fronts around the world. We are not safer than we were in 2000. We are denying USA asylum to peoples who are brown, and we have isolated our country from helping refugees around the world: refugees who are displaced because of retaliatory hatred.

We have an administration that no American could have foreseen. Except the people who saw it coming, who spoke about it, and who had their careers destroyed for speaking the truth to power.

Cheryl Ann Mull Moody

Purple Rose for Our Theatre QueenWild, funny, big-hearted, snarky, wonderful crazy woman. We met in high school backstage. One of the first things she did for me was wrangle a furious girlfriend who just found out the guy who'd started dating me had stopped dating her. Opening night, minutes before curtain up, that girl was going to deck me. The show must go on! Cheryl Ann did big deeds for people and spurned gratitude, but wow – cross her, and she'd take you out at the knees. She always loved her people wholeheartedly.Many years later we were roomies in my Detroit house we called The House For Women on Their Way to Do Something Else. She would hear of a woman who could use a room, and in she'd move. Tennessee had a cousin Alabama, who just moved north. Come on in. Cheryl Ann had Tennessee roots her own self. Stinkin' Creek Road, if I remember correctly. We got introduced to peanuts in Coke.Cheryl asked - soon after moving in - if she could use the oven. Sure! I said. She came back into the living room - did you know there are books in there? Oh, that's where those went! We both read the books she dragged out of the oven immediately. Forget dinner.We all pitched in for household bills, and had a Chinese puzzle box on the coffee table for other stuff. Like psychics. And parties. And stuff. If you couldn't get the puzzle box open, you'd had enough stuff already.She had pet names for all of us. She always called me Linda Ruth. She called my sister EA. I called her Cheryl Ann, with a hard CH and a twangy Tennessee accent.Cheryl ran phone interference for everyone in the house. Is she here? I'll check. If she got a head shake no, she'd tell the person on the other end whatever story she thought up. If it was my mother, she just told her I wasn't in. She always knew what her friends needed.I left the Christmas tree up until April one year. Cheryl Ann told people I wasn't going to take it down until the hostages came home. She always covered our foolishness.So many wonderful memories. We laughed more than we did anything else. She loved to laugh, and did often and deep. Among the pictures is a welcome home dinner she did for me. Fancy tablecloth, sign, apron et al. I had probably been gone 3 days. She did thoughtful things for people her whole life.One of the men I was dating was older. Cheryl called him Dad. We'd take the roomies who were home on dinner dates. Cheryl would start a ruckus before we got down the driveway. "Are we there yet?" "Dad, she's poking me." "I have to go to the bathroom."At one of the parties, 3 men I was dating all showed up. The house was big enough, and this party was on all 3 floors and in the back and front yards, so Cheryl would find me, warn me, head him(s) off, and I'd duck up down and around like a cartoon whodunit. She always had your back.She saved me more than once, and with love and, when appropriate, a good scold.We said when we were old ladies in the nursing home, we'd have a big couch. She would read on one end, and I would read on the other. She's now reading on the big couch in heaven, and one day, I'll take the other end.I will always love her. Always.

Three Story Life - Toilet Paper Follies

My little brother uses excessive wads of toilet paper. He has started using toilet paper when he pees, too. I called a plumber 3 times in 6 weeks. Twice I was able to have the nice guys come over. Cheery as well as efficient. The 3rd time I got the crank.

A Lecture Isn't What I Need from a Plumber

You're using too much toilet paper. <duh>
Don't you have an auger? <show auger>
That's not an auger. <why does it say auger on the tag, then, hm?>
You need this size auger. <hefts his auger>
<Ooo that's a big one. Here's your check. Bye.>

1. Hide the Toilet Paper

This worked for the first handful of times. Scott has Alzheimer's disease, but he still can see. He knows where the toilet paper is hidden.

2. Hide the Toilet Paper Higher

Scott is short, so I thought I could put it on the top shelf in the back. Nope. So I hid it better.

3. Hide the 12-Pack

Unable to find the new hiding spot, he opened the new 12-roll package on the floor and used that.

4. Hide the Toilet Paper in Different Places

I figured out that the sound of his belt buckle dragging on the floor means the search for where the toilet paper is hidden is underway. With his drawers dragging, and a bum not in safe travel mode yet.

5. Hide the Toilet Paper in the Same Place. Listen for the Belt Buckle

This only works if I'm paying strict attention from the Artist's Dungeon directly below the bathroom. This method also requires that I remember where I hid the toilet paper the last time.

6. Tell the Carers Where The Toilet Paper Is

If I don't remember to reveal the location, there's a text message to be sent. If I don't remember that, I get a text. Where's the TP?
 

RJ Spangler Trio and Tbone Paxton Mardi Gras Jazz Music 2019

Spring cannot be far behind when listeners find a seat at Salem-South Lyon District Library to enjoy Mardi Gras jazz music with the RJ Spangler Trio and John (Tbone) Paxton. The group opened with Professor Longhair's ode to New Orleans and Mardi Gras. Next up, Art Neville's Mardi Gras Mambo. The link is Charmaine Neville's take. I love the growling baritone sax and the cover art, too. Art Neville just announced his retirement in December 2018.

This concert appearance is always a welcome musical experience that also delivers an education. Before performing Canjun Country, Tbone shared a history of New Orleans and its music. An organic convergence of French Acadians who were expelled from Canada in the 18th century, with West African, Congolese musicology. Congo Square was a gathering place for drumming and music in New Orleans (restricted and banned except on Sundays until the 1920s.)

We know Hank Williams (Cajun Baby, Jambalaya) and I'm going to introduce you to D. L. Menard's The Back Door, too. D.L. said he was asked to write about the Front Door, but he's got trouble with the hinges so he hasn't gotten around to it. Not quite jazz, but Acadiana, and New Orleans flavored for sure.

Hoagie Carmichael's New Orleans was our next treat. Quoting the link comments section here: "This is from the 1956 album "Hoagy Sings Carmichael with The Pacific Jazzmen" (Art Pepper on alto sax, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Don Fagerquist, Jimmy Zito, Irv Cottler, Nick Fatool, Al Hendrickson and Jimmy Rowles), arranged and conducted by Johnny Mandel.

RJ told us that Bix Beiderbecke played with Hoagy Carmichael. Before 1930, Bix was with the Jean Goldkette Orchestra. Goldkette was the music director of the DAC for over 20 years, and also co-owner of the Graystone Ballroom. Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa, and undoubtedly heard jazz music wafting off the Mississippi River. Goldkette married Lee McQuillen, a newspaperwoman, and I can't find a thing about her. What newspaper? Inquiring minds want to know.

Iko Iko is a story about Mardi Gras Angels, African-American/Native American influencers, performers who used to fight and now dance. TJ mentioned Rumble, a PBS documentary about Native American contributions to music.

And if you want to sing some more, Jock-a-mo-fee-na-ney . Next on the list was Eh La Bas Danny Barker, composer. This is one of our favorite audience participation tunes.

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? You won't want to miss this video of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. If you don't check any of the links before this one, do listen here. Don't know who the blonde is, but looks enough like my Mom to make this song even more bittersweet.

My li'l bro and I listening. I'm missing New Orleans in this photo. We both still miss both our folks, who shared music with us all their lives.

RJ and Tbone speak often about the responsibiliy - and beauty - of sharing their decades of experience with storytelling alongside performing music. We have watched young talented musicians sharing the stage with these venerable musicologists.

Jeff Cuny, bass. Jake Schwandt, guitar. RJ Spangler, percussion. Tbone Paxton, trombone and vocals. And whistling - that man can whistle.

Check the schedule on the RJ Spangler website to find where you can hear more jazz music, blues, Planet D Nonet.

Appreciation, as always, to Salem-South Lyon District Library for bringing music, art, knowledge to our fortunate community. Watch the SSLDL events calendar for more of this bounty.

10th Moose Productions

The Amazing and Talented Artist Carol Ludwig and I were talking about our art. Carol will be exhibiting in Dexter, MI come April for 2 months. Her collages are deep and evocative and beautiful. After a burst of creativity, then a lull spell, she's back in the flow. Brava!

We were talking about Louise Penny's book that I was rereading - the characters wondered throughout why there was no Muse who shepherded art. 9 Muses. Not one has art in her realm. Wacky Greeks. So we agreed with Penny we need a 10th Muse. As Carol and I were signing off, I wished her a visit from the 10th moose.

Misspoke inspiration.

Then I hunted my drawing of a moose, and posted it on facebook. Because it's funny. I like funny. And I like my drawings.

This moose came to life because of a white water trip. Don't remember which river, but it was wild. I wasn't following instructions well because I was terrified. And my moves were not yet automatic enough to get it right. Don't get it right in white water, and everybody in the boat swims. Through rocks and floater logs and sneers from Neptune. When we emerged untipped on the far far side of the wave chain, the stern paddler launched into instruction mode. Show me a brace. Rudder river left. Where are your feet? I don't know, I said.

Which put me into storytelling The Girl Who Didn't Know Where Her Feet Were. So tall, that... and this moose was born. And a pink flamingo, and I forget what else.

Art is often happy accident. The one painting I won a prize for - and sold on the same night - started out as a piece of paper thrown across the room. My watercolor sky sucked. Walking back in my workshop much later, I saw the paper on the cement floor. Upside down. Ah! As a sky it stunk. As a heaving ocean, it rocked.

I just missed a deadline for the show I've entered for 9 years and won multiple poetry awards in, and one art prize. It's a show about ekphrasis - an ancient Greek (and here are those wacky guys again) argument about which is more aesthetically pleasing: the art or the words in celebration of the art. Entrants submit an original artwork, and an original poem related to the art. For 9 years I entered the limit of 3. 3 paintings. 3 poems. That's 54 pieces of art. I experiment all year on the 6 results that will be entered.

I missed the deadline fully aware that was probably going to be the case. I'm not grieving, so I need to reflect on what's going on in my creative realm. 9 years, hmmm. Time for the 10th moose to step up.

Linda Robinson Art Vitae

I have created art all my aware life. My first art prize was in 3rd grade for a pastel of a camel. I suspect it was supposed to be a horse, and when that didn't work out too well, I added a pyramid and a palm tree. I won a Michigan art prize for that horse/camel, but because Captain Jolly was presenting the prizes, I skipped it by getting pneumonia. Captain Jolly scared me.

In recent decades I did textbook illustration, which put bread on table. Tiny loaf. When I could get the assignment, I made book art. My best friend and I made a team - she laid out books, and I did the art.  One of our team results was my novel, Chantepleure.

I made all the art on this blog. 708 posts, banner, thumbnails.

My artistic emphasis today is supporting other women entrepreneurs with art. Creating is a joy, and if I have enough to eat and keep a roof over my head, I choose the projects I want to play in. My friend Barb Barton is a gatherer/forager, and I made all her labels for wild foods, in exchange for honey, syrup, wild rice, vinegar. Because I believe in the amazing creative work she does.

My friend Patricia Fero is a psychologist/author and retreat auteur. I am creating her 10th anniversary release of her 2008 book What Happens When Women Wake Up? I create women symbol medallions for her retreat participants. Because I believe in the amazing creative work she does.

Today I still create book art. I am enjoying lessons in watercolor, metalwork and am teaching myself to create in paper clay. Because I believe in the amazing creative work I do.

I do create for money, if the project appeals, and I can manifest the author's vision.

Not The Favourite

We three sisters went to the show this month. The last time this happened was...1980ish. None of us enjoyed The Favourite. The last time we agreed on a movie was 1970ish. For decades we (including our mother) individually have hurried to screen all the Academy Award nominated films before the ceremony.

Not too long into this screening, the music got on our nerves. Then the fisheye camera view got on our nerves. I adjusted my glasses. My sister adjusted her seat. The other sister turned her cellphone back on. Then I started growling at the costumes. All black and white outfits for the castle concert. And in one please take this out in the director's cut scene - the lack of costume. Then we lost it in the excessive wiggage: I got the giggles and those are catchy. Which gargantuan wigs must be, too.

Discussion on the way out of the theater, through the parking lot and into the car. Confusion about the buzz. Is this historical? Was there a Queen Anne? What country? It's a satire? Of what? What's with the ending? and the music? and the fisheye lens? and the sex? Is there some correlation with power? Whose?

Did Baz Luhrman direct this? Wouldn't it have been fun if Wes Anderson had?

Does gout manifest in open wounds?

What's with the rabbits? And need we see correlation between rabbits and wigs? I requoted a former boss, shouting over his bubble charts from his office - we have significance!

And the fisheye lens thing. I'm a fan of fish POV: I did a cartoon series with satirical trout. As all trout fisherpersons may not acknowledge - but in fact, know - trout are cannier. The director nattered about what his camera angle choice was about - something about mirrors of the period. Is that significant? What was this film satirizing? Why do we never see the rabbits in fisheye?

What are the actual chances Lady Sarah would fall off her horse into a brothel? And what does that convey? And why do we only see fornication from behind? Do we have significance? Does this have anything to do with rabbits?

Does having woman + woman sex make it a woman gaze movie? Does soliquoying about political machinations while giving a handjob to a man pass the Bechdel?

As I switched the car on, my sister came up with what the ending possibly meant, and then she directed it better. The end.

It took about 7 minutes to get from the seat to the car seat. We all agreed the leads were fantastic actors and need be nominated. We listed the categories the film better not be nominated in. [In a reverse scoring coup, we scored 100%.] And we were done talking about the movie.

Now I remember the last film we all saw together. Reds, 1981. We agreed it better not be nominated for film editing or director.

Three:Two Story Life

Back the way it was. We're early in the 2nd year without Dad, and Scott still has this verbal tic. My response changes. I know, honey. It is the way it is. I do too. No response, depending on how the day's rolling. Scott is taking prozac now - I imagine he's depressed. The doctor agreed although I am the only reporting individual. She takes my word for it and writes a script. The carers report that he is more responsive (although I still don't know what to do with the one who coaches him to say praise Jesus!) I notice that Scott has stepped into life a bit more. (The fact that he can repeat praise Jesus! is one example.) This return to life shows up in making choices about his environment. He's picking up his dish from the table more often. He makes his bed. Moved his record albums into the living room from his bedroom. Decides when he's going to put on underwear instead of a diaper.

I have to be faster. He picks up his dish, but turns it upside down in the well I put the clean dishes. Then I need to rewash those. He makes his bed over wet sheets. Then the comforter is wet, too. Scott will toss underwear around until he finds the pair he wants to wear, and then I feel like he should be allowed to wear his choice, until the laundry basket is half full with wet underwear. I've had the plumber in 3 times in 60 days because Scott now wants to use toilet paper when he pees. A roll at a time. If he flushes, we're plugged. He doesn't always, so I have to be alert to what's up in the bathroom. Every time. Ten twenty times a day.

My handler with the State DHHS confirmed there's no way to timestamp this. Constant vigilance. No line item. I don't know why I brought it up with her. Looking for some affirmation that this is hard, unrewarding, depressing so that translates to a spreadsheet in the Capricorn corner of my brain.

My therapist used to instruct me to ignore stuff. Just la di da while stepping over scivvies tossed on the floor, toothpicks embedded in the carpet, twist ties strewn around the house. Back then it made some sense. Back the way it was meant arguing with Dad every week about allowing Scott his own life, his own agency, his own quirks. Now I am pushing back at that agency, a quandary for personal growth and peace.

All this stuff is just stuff. Whinging about the mundane. Because that's what it is. It is what it is.

Dad was a support on this three-legged stool of our stories. Scott spent all of his life with Dad in his story. That's a huge loss for him. Scott is finding his way in this new world order without the brain power and memory to find a way through. I question every hour if there is someone or anything that would be a comfort to him.

Dad was the person I could talk with, share his love of sports, my love of art. He was funny when he wasn't grouchy. Just like me. There are entire days when Scott and I have no direct communication; days when he's roaming the corridors of his inner life, and he does not hear me speak.

I'm mad and sorry most of the time. My freedom is curtailed - if I need to leave the house, I either have to take Scott with, or pay for support. I am not as agile, nimble, or interested as I was a year ago. Feeling isolated, I've isolated myself more. Quit the art commission. Stopped painting. Writing, creating, anything. I don't want to get dressed, shower, or rise from the bed to do neither.

I keep thinking this is the day it turns around. This is the day I reengage with life. This is the day my story will take up where it left off. And on that day I'm wrong again.

I am stuck in a groove of being unable to console myself because so many other people have it much harder than I do.

And I still can't cry.

A Three Story Life Farewell

We're burying Dad this week. He died in November, and the ashes have been at home until I passed the urn along to my big brother. In preparation for selling the house on Drummond Island, most of the offspring are on the island clearing out, tidying up. Since most are there along with Dad's ashes, my sister called the county to prepare the site. Feels rushed. The original plan was to coordinate this for later summer, early autumn.

It's always too soon, isn't it? Plans for this week changed abruptly Sunday when I heard the intent to bury Dad on Thursday, and I decided that I couldn't not be there. I don't want to wake up one morning down the road and feel bad. As if. Meanwhile, I have to prepare for making my brother share this long road to good-bye.

Our mother died in 1998. Scott won't get out of the car when we visit her grave. 20 years down the long road, he is mostly uncommunicative. I sometimes think he knows Dad has joined Mom, but there is no way to be sure. I told him Dad died. Dementia prevents him from keeping this knowledge. Some days he says it's over repeatedly. Some days he says back the way it was.

My closest friends think I'm crazy to make this trip at all, albeit with no other family in the car for 750 miles round. I have to pack mounds of incontinence supplies. Scott may or may not find closure, and even if he does, it's momentary. I protected him from the physicality of our parents leaving their bodies. That may not have been a good idea. I'm questioning everything. I pretend I can evaluate his needs. I cannot. I am wandering away from identifying my own needs.

All part of life's rich pageant. All grist for the writer's mill. In a life wherein I start writing again, this trip will be the closing scene. As it happens, the day Dad moves to his final place is the anniversary of us moving from A Three Story Life to A Two Story Life. May 26. It's also his brother and best friend's birthday. His brother died in 1998 also.

In that light on that stage, I imagine the items that might go in the grave with Dad's urn. Like ancient deceased expected to need stuff to negotiate the afterlife. I can't find my medicine bag (the collected donated items to help me kick cancer) that has the saxophone reed Dad gave me.

What I need to do is envision what I need to consign to earth. Leave whatever does not serve me on the Island when we get on the ferry. Use the mantra my lovely friend Carol taught me. All will be well.

I'm taking the golf ball.

Wish us peace.

New Orleans Jazz and Blues at Salem-South Lyon District Library

Donna Olson Introduces "John and I go back 40 years..." RJ Spangler began. Back to Sully's Blues Bar in Dearborn, where Jimmy Lesnau brought in acts from all over the world. Blues legends. Scroll through the pictures - Duke Robillard, Terry Garland. The chance to back up great musicians and songwriters. Johnny Adams. Earl King (Come On, Baby Parts 1&2. More on that later.) Professor "Fess" Longhair, the rollicking piano man.

RJ Spangler and TBone Paxton played Sunday with Matt LoRusso on guitar, Jeff Cuny on bass. Jeff just finished his Master of Music in Jazz at WSU. Bravo!

Storytelling + music + history. Does it get any better than that? RJ is reading a book by Ned Sublette, musicologist that traces the African/Caribbean/Cuban roots of New Orleans music. New Orleans history, back to the Bourbon cousin French/Spanish colonizers.

Go Down to New Orleans. John "TBone" Paxton took the lead on this song to start us swinging. Note on Professor Fess Longhair - there's a bust of him in Tipitina's Bar. Enjoy another cover of Tipitina by Dr. John and Johnny Winter.

The 2nd song in the set Basin Street Blues, written by Spencer Williams in 1928, made famous by Louis Armstrong the same year; this video featuring Jack Teagarden on trombone. RJ mentioned Dr. Michael White, swinging clarinet player. We were treated to an experimental combination, starting as a ballad and switching it up swing. We heard it here first!

Strongly featured in the richness of New Orleans music, and as shared with us by RJ, are producers/players like Dave Bartholomew, who produced Fats Domino. His son Don B. continues the family music dynasty. The Batiste Family. Neville Brothers. Marsalis Family.

Iko Iko is a call and response Mardi Gras Indian tune. Big Chief, Flag Boy - designations of parade positions in a turf war that became a friendly costumed musical rivalry; raising money for charity and to bury the familial departed. Grateful Dead, Dr. John - even Jimmy Fallon and The Roots have covered this fine example of clave rhythm pattern.

Back now to the Come on, Baby, Let The Good Times Roll, Parts 1 and 2. The 1960 recording by Earl King, has Part 1 on the A side, Part 2 on B. Written by Shirley & Lee, their 1956 recording climbed to #20. Jimi Hendrix covered it, as did these others.

Next up was a walking ballad. Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?

RJ shared more stories: of Guitar Slim in Florida with a young musician he let run the session. Ray Charles was the man's name. Danny Barker, who played banjo and guitar in Harlem in the 20s and 30s, joined Cab Calloway's band, then went back to New Orleans, where he helped rebirth the New Orleans brass band tradition.

For those of you who need to know where the music is playing when it's out of town, Offbeat Magazine has New Orleans on the Road. April 2018 issue cover feature is the French Quarter Fest Issue.

To close the set RJ, Tbone, Jeff and Matt treated us - and we joined in - with Eh, La Bas, traditional New Orleans song. You can play here with the Creole, French, English lyrics.

Standing room only!

This program is funded in part by Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.