Wreaths 2024

Fruit and pinecone wreath by Olasky and Sintseden

Happy Holidays 2024!

Welcome to the 2024 Holiday Season! For (pretty much) the rest of this month, I will be featuring photos, information, and posts of the season. It's all about snow, cold, and lights. Enjoy!

And as usual here at "Oh, By The Way," we kick off the month with one of the sweetest holiday songs ever, the wistful "Christmas Time Is Here" by the inimitable Vince Guaraldi for the original soundtrack to the classic Peanuts television special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Peanuts actors from a 1968 TV Guide article.
L to R: Sally Dryer as Lucy, Gail DeFaria as Peppermint Patty, Peter Robbins as Charlie Brown,
Christopher Shea as Linus, and animator Bill Melendez as Snoopy

"To The Substitute Art Teacher" by Jordan Bolton

The talented illustrator Jordan Bolton (previously here) has released a book of his tender, stunning--and dare I say it, life-changing--pieces called "Blue Sky Through The Window Of A Moving Car." Here is "To The Substitute Art Teacher." Beauty can be found anywhere, and everywhere.

You can buy his book here.
Visit his Instagram page to see more.
https://www.instagram.com/jordanboltondesign

Happy Thanksgiving 2024!

Once again, we find ourselves approaching a holiday season with uncertainty in our nation and indeed, the world. Such challenges make us look to what we have in our own lives, close to us, and cherish those people, things, and places even more. On this holiday of gratitude, let's give thanks for the things that make us good, strong, honorable, and loving human beings. Let's give thanks to the people who bring light and calm and love to our lives and to the world. Let's give thanks for the generous actions and goodwill in our lives--whether done by others or ourselves--that strengthen the fabric of humanism and the choices to unite, protect, and find value in this existence, and which can combat the turbulence, pain, uncertainty, and darkness. Hold dear these things and live up to these ideals for which we are grateful. Let's find value in ourselves and others, and express this gratitude in our intentions, deeds, and words. Let's be grateful for the value of the human experience, love, and life itself.

Floral arrangement and table setting by Holly Chapple

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Thanks, Jesus 2024

As we eat our Thanksgiving meal, let us thank not an imaginary figure in the sky but those who are TRULY responsible--migratory agricultural workers--for helping to bring our food to our tables, through their numbingly long days of low-wage, backbreaking work.

"Window" by The Weather Station

This beautiful new song, "Window" by The Weather Station is chasing me, catching me. It is swirling, moaning, quietly urgent...

My heart is racing as a window opens somewhere to let me out. Streaming down the windowpane, some cold metaphorical literal rain - I’m in physical pain, visceral shame breaks for a second and I can see out again. Outside the street just looks like a painting - what am I doing standing dizzy on my own landing - a change of clothes hastily packed and the key to some apartment cold in my hand - and I know - my heart is racing as a window opens somewhere to let me out - to let me in. To somewhere I already was, softly there in the margins of this so-called love - I touch the edge of it - just a glimpse of it - my own life I guess - streaming wild like a ribbon in the wind, unruly, static, this noise within this must-do can’t-say kind of feeling. I can’t explain right now - just that I’m leaving this time. My heart is racing as a window opens somewhere to let me out.

https://www.theweatherstation.net/

BEAUTY: Watercolor Illustration--Joanna Blémont

Artist Joanna Blémont is an illustrator in Edinburgh who creates extraordinary watercolors of haunting narratives...vast empty places, the passage of time, and lone figures. Their simplicity is arresting.

Prints of her work are available at her shop through her website!
https://joannablemont.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Moncler x Jil Sander (Lucie and Luke Meier)

Wow, look at this collection created by Jil Sander creative directors Lucie and Luke Meier for the venerable skiwear/winter outerwear brand Moncler's City of Genius project. Such simple, monastic beauty certainly fits the winter season.

https://www.moncler.com/
https://www.jilsander.com/

"People Watching" by Sam Fender

Sam Fender is a wonderfully sensitive songwriter, evidenced by his intense, breakthrough song "Dead Boys" previously here. He continues his oeuvre with this new track, "People Watching": powerful music that reminds me a bit of The War On Drugs, but with raw, touching lyrics...I love that combination.

https://www.samfender.com/

"Like The End" by James Blake

As I posted the other day, Bertolt Brecht wrote, "In the dark times/Will there also be singing?/Yes, there will also be singing./About the dark times."

So James Blake has given us a mirror called "Like The End" which I was going to post on Inauguration Day but, well, hey, it's already here...and not just the incoming Empire of Darkness, but the whole she-bang, the floods, the fires, the viciousness, the vitriol, the apathy, the tornadoes, the hurricanes, the willful ignorance, the rabid zealotry, the scams, the greed, the famines, the targeted destruction, the sanctioned crimes, the abdication of justice, the fetishization of force, the mass shootings, the self-medicating numbing. He's just giving the facts.

As I separate my cardboard
Set my tax aside to fund another war
My spirit wakes up asking
If we're spending what we can't afford

Would you come home
If you didn't recognise it?
Home's tryna be America
They just don't advertise it

But doesn't it feel like the end?
Something's coming for us
And maybe we're not prepared
That this might only be day one
But doesn't it feel like the end?
Something's coming for us
I think we're not prepared
That this might only be day one

Thinking of ourselves, we are divided
But if you fly your flag, they'll weaponise it
Doesn't it feel like the end?
When we can't even agree on what was said

Would you come home
If you didn't recognise it?
Home's tryna be America
They just don't advertise it

But doesn't it feel like the end?
Something's coming for us
And maybe we're not prepared
That this might only be day one
But doesn't it feel like the end?

Something's coming for us
I think we're not prepared
That this might only be day one

https://www.jamesblakemusic.com/

"Heaven Up There" by Palace

"Heaven Up There" by Palace. One more chance to hug, to say I love you, to say goodbye...just one more.

 

Well the night is gone

And the shadows clear

When I hear my song

Will the grave be near?

See what you want

But I'm the rising tide

I'm no force of god

I'm a thousand lives

I take what I want

'Cause I'm the frightening sky

I'm a selfish man

Designed to die

But is it heaven up there?

Is it heaven up there?

Is it heaven up there?

'Cause it's hell down here

Believe in existence spent

To separate us from them

To know that your blood runs thin

Is to live with the truth within

So scrape up the bruise I wear

And eradicate all my fears

Prepare me to walk these stairs

I don't know where my future is

I don't know where my future is

Is it heaven up there?

Is it heaven up there?

Is it heaven up there?

Is it heaven up there?

Say I've been blind

For the use of my time

Wanna be a better man

On the ground that I stand

There's something out there

Just know that I've cared

Do this side by side

Motion with the tide

Ooh ooh ooh Ooh ooh ooh

Is it heaven up there?

Is it heaven up there?

Is it heaven up there?

'Cause it's hell down here

Yes, it's hell down here

Is this heaven up there?

I know there's heaven up there

I know there's heaven up there

'Cause there's heaven up there

https://www.wearepalace.com/

Happy birthday mom. Is it heaven up there?

The Shot That Was Heard Around The World

Today, sixty-one years ago, a man was shot in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 P.M.

All day
Hiding from the sun
Waiting for the golden one
Waiting for your fame
After the parade has gone

Outside was a happy place
Every face had a smile like the golden face
For a second
Your knuckles white as your fingers curled
The shot that was heard around the world
For a second

It took seconds of your time to take his life
It took seconds

Seconds

For a second

https://www.jfklibrary.org/
https://www.thehumanleague.co.uk/

I Miss My Mom

Take one if you miss your mom too.

"Rhubarb Orc. 19.53 Rev" by Aphex Twin

There is an interesting story to this Aphex Twin (the nom de musique of electronic musician Richard James) track, "Rhubarb Orc. 19.53 Rev" which was recently released on the Aphex Twin retrospective album "Selected Ambient Works Vol. II (Expanded Edition)." It was originally performed live at the Barbican in London in 2012 as part of an experiment James called The Remote Orchestra: a 48-piece orchestra and a 24 person choir all wearing wireless headphones took sound and visual cues (colored bars displayed on a large monitor overhead) to sing or play certain notes and in certain styles or volumes from James working on a laptop computer backstage. In effect, he turned the orchestra and choir into a sort of electronic instrument he could play by clicking on his software.

The track has been reworked and is presented here in reverse, which recalls something Brian Eno might have done. The idea that ambient music is holistic, meaning one can take any small section and have it represent the whole, is apparent here. It does not matter if the track is heard as it was recorded or played backward. The cumulative sense is the same.

But what is truly touching are the liner notes from "Selected Ambient Works II (Expanded Edition)" about this track:

Rhubarb notes:
My mum gave me so much love, dedicated her life to me, filled me to the brim with confidence and somehow managed to be a nurse at the same time. That love she gave can now be felt by millions of people all over the world and beyond through this music.
Thanks for everything Lorna James!
I watched both my mum and dad die in front of me recently, was so very grateful to have been able to be with them then, as scary as it was to see. She was cracking jokes hours before she left, even though she was in a lot of pain, she told the awkward doctor on the last day, 'I should be shot, put down', she was very funny. I opened the lovely french doors to the room she was in on the last morning, it was sunny and she said, 'ah that beautiful Champagne air', will remember that til I die.
I still meet them in my dreams regularly and have relaxing normal chats about nothing in particular, I'm going to see if all three of us can listen to this track next time we meet up.
Richard D. James, June 2024

Considering I am between the anniversaries of my own parents' deaths, I am very moved by the story, his notes, and certainly the heavenly music.

https://aphextwin.warp.net/

I Miss My Dad

Take one if you miss your dad too.

Hunter's Moon

"Magnetic" by Tunde Adebimpe

I like TV On The Radio and therefore, Tunde Adebimpe. Especially his new song "Magnetic." And damn, he looks particularly sexy here...

https://www.instagram.com/tadebimpe

"Motto" by Bertolt Brecht

Motto

In the dark times,
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.

--Bertolt Brecht

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht

Veteran's Day 2024

"Regardless of feelings on conflicts past or present or military action in general, it is best to understand that the men and women who are or have been in the Armed Forces do not choose their wars, but they do their work no matter what the cost."

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
--Dwight D. Eisenhower, Address before the Canadian Club, Ottawa, Canada, 1/10/46

I want to honor two of my own relatives, veterans of two world wars, who fought Fascism...one died in World War I and the other fought valiantly in World War II. I am sure my relatives are rolling in their graves, after fighting and dying to make sure that Fascism did not spread around the world and to the United States. That was a time when Republicans thought Fascism was a bad thing, unlike today when they--and the in-coming administration--support dangerous regimes in Russia and others around the world. I know both of my relatives (one of them an Italian immigrant), if they were alive now, would be appalled and outraged that Fascism is being institutionalized by the Republican party, and welcomed and encouraged by its supporters. My relatives died so the very thing that is happening now, wouldn't. And it makes me infinitely sad and frustrated that these men seemingly died for nothing...and that segments of the population of this country support the kind of nationalism, totalitarianism, disdain for facts and humanity, and suppression that are the hallmarks of Fascism.

Word Of The Day

https://www.instagram.com/susiedent

"Sonder: The Realization That Everyone Has A Story" by John Koenig

Last year I posted about the marvelous John Koenig, author of THE DICTIONARY OF OBSCURE SORROWS, a book of neologisms to express new terms for subtle emotions. One of his words in particular, was meaningful to me.

sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Koenig made a short video to illustrate the concept of this word and it is lovely and moving.

There are more video illustrations of his words at his Youtube channel.

"Sonder" reminds me of the incredible, life-changing film "Wings of Desire" (previously here) by auteur Wim Wenders. When I first saw this film in 1987, I was literally awestruck and truly emotionally devastated by its scope of humanity and the clear presence of the "animus mundi" in the story. For the first nearly ten or fifteen minutes, we follow a pair of angels as they listen in on the voice of humanity itself, going from person to person, hearing thoughts of love, pettiness, despair, hope, regret, and forgiveness from men, women, young and old. I wept openly through that stunning and powerful opening sequence, overwhelmed by the force of so much existence, so much life, so much sorrow and so much joy (listening in, through an angel, to the thoughts of a dying motorcyclist who has just been in an auto accident is heart-rending). And by extension, not just now, but in the past and the time humanity has left.

https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/

"Mad World" x 3

The original is absolutely sublime...

...but there have been some lovely covers.

https://tearsforfears.com/
https://www.garyjules.com/
https://linktr.ee/flosomusic

Time To Save The Country

"We can disagree and still love each other, unless..."

This seems like a good time to repost this:

Here We Are Again

Hello, readers. I have started to write this post several times already, approaching it from different angles each time: talking about resisting, talking about disappoinment, using humorous images to address looming dystopia, posting a list of rules on How To Survive An Authoritarian Regime, but none of it seemed right. None of it captured the entirety of the swirl of conflicting thoughts and emotions I am sure all of us are feeling. So I just want to say two things:

I still believe in everything I did before last night, with even more conviction. For whatever the next administration has in store for us, I intend to be a grain of sand in the eye of heaven, which will manifest itself against them in many ways.

Just like the last time we did this, living well is the best revenge. I re-dedicate myself to beauty in all its forms. The arts are a healing balm and they come to our aid in distressing times. I pledge to continue to live my life, and turn the volume up a bit. They don't get my liberal tears...they get my liberal self.

We are not going away.

VOTE HARRIS 2024!

http://kamalaharris.com

VOTE HARRIS-WALZ 2024!

https://kamalaharris.com/