Shelter in place

It's happened again, which is no real surprise.

It happened twice yesterday morning - the media didn't latch on to the mass murder in Savannah, Georgia. Only four were shot there, with only one death. Such events aren't really news anymore.
The US is currently averaging one mass shooting per day.

In all of the news stories, whenever the situation hasn't been 'resolved', mention is made that workers/residents/shoppers were told to "shelter in place". It's an awful phrase. What message does that phrase send, I wonder? It implies that the war (any war, any killing, any major storm, any threat) is all around us, it can reach anywhere; take refuge, hunker down, hide, stay out of the way, the evil lurks without even while it is within. The battles around us rage on.

The phrase even has its own entry in Wikipedia. It is an official SAME warning. The acronym means Specific Area Message Encoding. To be honest, it never occurred to me that if bullets were flying, police sirens wailing, bright bluewhitered lights flashing, and etc. that one would need to be told to get out of the way.

Perhaps the message that is being sent is really one of preparation: The war is coming to a theater, home, small town, anytown, everytown near you. Get used to seeing the flack jackets, the camofashion protective suit, the guns, always more guns, the vans, the flashing lights. You'll be seeing a lot more of them. As soon as they become normal, accepted, the tanks will roll up. Will they be there to protect us, or will they be there to protect property - wealth? Will they be coming for us? They will know where to find us - sheltered in place.

Meanwhile, a message flashes across my computer screen - the stock market has opened higher.

The build up of anxiety is almost overwhelming. How will things be straightened out? A superhero - we need a superhero. The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade had a new balloon - a bonafide superhero, introduced a year before in the comic books, earlier that year on the radio.

 

 

 

The year was 1940, the war was 'over there'. We'd been through a great economic depression, which was still lingering about. With Thanksgiving falling at the end of the month, thereby creating a short holiday shopping season, a plan was hatched to move the holiday ahead by one week to give the merchants more time to make money. It was considered unseemly to start such sales before Thanksgiving. President Roosevelt agreed. For three years, from 1939 through 1941, Thanksgiving was moved a week earlier. Many did not agree with the idea. The Republican Governor of  Vermont was a Progressive - and even he wasn't having any of it, nor were many of the states. So while Federal employees, many liberals and Democrats celebrated on the third Thursday, State workers, conservatives, and Republicans celebrated on the fourth. As one column in the newspaper noted, the kids loved asking if one was celebrating "Franks, or Thanks?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The entire second feature which starts on Thursday.... 

 

  

 

 

 

 

The Tuesday night before that traditional Thanksgiving  in 1940, there was broadcast from the new Palladium Ballroom in Los Angeles. It's dance floor could hold 4,000 but on opening night a month before over 10,000 had crowded in to dance to the music of that Sentimental Gentleman of Swing, Tommy Dorsey. Dorsey's girl singer, Connie Haines, was pretty good - but he had a hot new boy singer being backed up by the Pied Pipers, some kid named Frank. The broadcast was on at 11pm on the East Coast - the doors had just opened on the West Coast where it was 8pm and the evening was just getting underway. My radio show last Saturday listened in to that November when the war was overseas.




 As always, I hope any one who listens in enjoys the show.

Red Cup mania

Rembrandt tulips
 

Back when I ran bookstores for a living, there was a very successful paperback reprint of Charles Mackay's 1841 opus, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". One of the chapters examined the tulip mania of the 1640's. Basically, a plant virus struck the Netherlands and caused breaks in the colors of tulips. The desire to possess the affected bulbs built into a frenzy. Fortunes were quickly amassed, and spent, investing in their acquisition. Prices for just one bulb reached to such heights that a well off merchant's lifetime earnings could not afford the purchase of one single bulb. Although the term would not come into use for a number of years, the "economic bubble" burst, destroying both fortunes and lives. The descendants of these tulips still exist: they are usually sold under the name "Rembrandt".



Just one portion of the Solar Hill gardens last June. The entire space,
including my garden, would comprise about eight squares of this size,
including all of the area around the tree center left.

When I last posted, I had just finished planting the tulips. I'm in the process of shutting the gardens down for the winter.  It is a large task (I've also been tending Solar Hill's gardens.) As plants go into their dormancy,  it's a good time for many of them to be transplanted. Several peonies, asters, a daylily, etc. were either being overgrown by their neighbors, or were getting less sunlight due to tree growth, etc. For good garden culture, plants should be cut back, leaves cut off and disposed of to prevent overwintering of diseases, and so on and so forth. I've accomplished most of it, but am still in the final stages of getting it all done.

Generally, I've been in the garden four to five days a week recently. Today was going to be a long garden day, as there weren't a lot of other things which couldn't be put off - I want to finish putting the garden to bed this week. Now, last night there was a meeting of our all volunteer community radio station's Board. This was our first meeting after our annual bash, so yearly Board elections had to be held. I've been returned to the position of Board President/Station Manager. This morning, about 7am or so, I sat down to fire off a few emails based on discussions from last night. Then the phone rang with a DJ's questions. The man calling is learning disabled, and calls several times a week, often asking the same question he asked the day before. He hasn't finished his training, but wants to fill in time slots which other DJs have posted that they won't be able to make. He has a case of radio fever, which often affects new DJs. I've repeatedly told him he has to finish his training, and must have the person who helps him present when he does a show. But he still calls and tries to get me to say something different. There is a DJ doing her last show today, so there needed to be posts to the station's email list, the station's Facebook page, etc. The upshot is that I finally stopped working on station business at 3pm. (By the way, an 8 year old, who has been doing a show with her mother since she was old enough to talk, just did her first 'by herself' show at 2pm. She put many of our adult DJs to shame. There were almost no children's songs that would have been heard on the show she does with her mother. Nope, this kid is into Spearhead, and jam bands.)
The station is another sort of garden.

I did spend about a half an hour of personal time on Facebook, checking responses to posts for my radio show, what a few of my friends and family were up to, etc. There were several Facebook sessions, sending messages to people about station business and etc. It was therefore impossible to escape the issue/outrage of the moment: the Red Cup. It would seem that all of Facebookland is obsessed with the red cup. Folks are posting impassioned diatribes about the issue. Memes, images with a slogan which are easy to repost allowing the poster to avoid having to think through what one might say, are spreading like soft butter on a hot skillet. There is a veritable red cup mania.

What happened is this: some church (or church official) that no one ever heard of called for a boycott of the Starbucks coffee chain. The problem started when Starbucks began using their holiday themed coffee cup. It is red, with a Starbucks logo in green and white. The church was offended, nay, outraged, that there was no "Merry Christmas!" scrawled across the cup. No "Season's Greetings" (which would have caused more of a "War on Christmas" fervor). No pictures of Santa Claus, the Christ child in the manger, nothing. Why, it is another example of the persecution of Christians! This little bit of idiocy has become a target for everyone who wants to outdo their friends by posting an ever more incisive meme (which I still unintentionally read as 'me me') in a frenzy of self righteousness equaled only by the original call for the boycott.

Warning: this being the year 2015, and social media being what it is, one of the examples of the red cup memes contains expressions of common vulgarity.

" ...whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first."
                                                                       - Charles Mackay, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"

Of course, my own cynicism leads me to wonder if the church and its representative actually exist. The large coffee corporation could have hired someone to start all of this just to get themselves a lot of free publicity.
                                                        
Another object of mass intoxication is the once wonderful holiday of Halloween, which has been built into a merchandising bonanza. The madness now begins in August when "pumpkin spice" English muffins hit the shelves of the supermarkets. Of course, there are no pumpkin spice muffins to be had anywhere near Halloween itself. This past September, in a Halloween products commercial I saw on television, the Halloween goods were displayed in front of a group of fir trees, which were decorated with colored lights. Holiday creep is upon us. At any rate, I never got my radio show of October 31st, Halloween,  posted - so here's that show, mostly big band Halloween songs. I know it seems odd to be posting it over a week late, but I'd like all my shows to be here for friends and family from away who might have some crazy interest in just what I've been up to these last few years.



Well, I thought I might go on about nothing in particular (there a whole 'nother mess o' memes being posted about a Republican Presidential candidate who has been playing fast and loose with the truth, and expressing somewhat surprising opinions such as his belief that the pyramids were built by the Jewish patriarch Joseph to store grain. He is the current Republican frontrunner in the reality show contest for the Presidency of the United States. Instead of continuing in this vein (by the way, I swear I'm not making this stuff up), I think I'll go sample the pumpkin bread I baked while composing this missive.

Herewith, my radio show from this past Saturday, November the 7th, in which we listen to excerpts from the radio, as well as a few of the songs on the jukebox, around early November, 1944. The featured broadcast at the end of the show is one of the Eddie Condon Jazz Concerts, with guest stars Lee Wiley and Red McKenzie.



As always, I hope any listeners enjoy the show(s).

Autumn in Vermont

Becoming unstuck in time is one thing. Losing control of it is another. In other words, I'm still having a problem getting much of anything done. Perhaps it is a lack of ambition to do things that is at the root of the problem. Perhaps the problem is that my perception of accomplishment is askew. I mean, I did get the dishes done. I could go on in this vein for awhile, which would eventually result in my admitting that I actually do a heck of a lot; it's just that it is so seldom as much as I want to get done. I know I have slowed down. I don't really mind. Perhaps the real problem is that the world seems to be going by faster that it used to, relative to my position in it. At times it feels like autumn has been slowly unfolding. Some days I think it is rushing by too fast. There is so much to note, so little time to drink it all in, to observe, to appreciate, to hold in heart or memory. Autumn, like Spring, goes by too quickly. And the effect seems more pronounced every year. Perhaps it has something to do with aging.

A bit over a week ago, a friend drove the two of us around a small portion of our state. Every now and again it is refreshing to be a tourist in your own area, your own state, on the paths you tread every day. Doing so is like a leaf revealing its colors in the fall.

Therefore, a presentation of totally unremarkable photographs, taken with a small point and click fits in your pocket style digital camera, published here without any adjustments to the originals. In others words (for friends from away) this really is how it looks - as the cheap digital sees it, anyway.

The pumpkin arrangement honors one of our state's US Senators, currently running for the Presidency.

The Connecticut River separates Vermont from New Hampshire - the view is of the New Hampshire side.

Route 5 is the old highway that passed through small towns, superseded by an Interstate that passed them by.



The village center and Common of Thetford. It's typical of this area - there really isn't any there there.
Even so, Thetford has a population over 2,600 which makes it larger than my hometown, which had an active Main Street.

Since the owners were nice enough to perfectly place the pumpkin to balance photographs,
I couldn't find it in my heart to pass up taking the shot.

Just a couple of homes to the left of the above.

At the center of the "T" formed by the shots near the library and the homes with views, the oldest continually used meeting house in the state. The congregation was organized in 1773. The building dates to 1787. It was moved form the other end of the common to its current site in 1830. A somewhat similar story to the Congregational Church in Brattleboro (where I live).

The Quechee Gorge was formed by glaciers 13,000 years ago. We're looking down 165 feet from the roadway. This is just a small part of what is visible. There are many hiking tails. I took a few pictures within about a 4 or 5 minute span of time, and everyone is different due to the changing light. This is by no means a spectacular shot, chosen only for color.

Federal period architecture always gets my attention; the village of Woodstock has it in abundance.
The main business of the town is a very large, very expensive, Inn owned by the Rockefellers.
p.s. I love the smell of money in the morning.



Woodstock's in-the-center-of-town covered bridge.



Just the side of another building by the Woodstock Common.

A hill near Plymouth Notch (which I visited at the beginning of July.)

I can't quite remember if this is Echo Lake or Lake Rescue. One follows the other, both alongside of Route 100.

Okay, I've spent enough time posting, I must get on to other things.

Here's last Saturday's radio show (October 17th), in which songs were played for autumn, and for the birthdays of big band jazz singer Anita O'Day (Oct. 18th), hot jazz era bandleader leader Roger Wolf Kahn (Oct. 19th), and drummer Cozy Cole (Oct. 17th). The aging mental case who hosts the program forgot to credit the 2nd song after the opening sequence - it was Cozy Cole's All Star Band performing "Just One More Chance".


  
 As always, I hope any listeners enjoy the show.
          

Swimming uphill in a sea of angst

Oh, good God(dess) (of your choice)(not that you have to make a choice or have a God or Goddess), I have been remiss in posting again. I never got last week's radio show posted here, and now I'm going to have to have a twofer again.

There is a rational explanation.

Well, perhaps 'rational' isn't quite  the best choice of words. Was it rational to upgrade my computer during Mercury Retrograde? To Windows 10?

While I often have a little but of fun with the idea and concept of blaming electronic communication oriented debacles on this particular planetary singalong, experience does seem to bolster the validity of the concept.

And this week has taught me that Experience may not be the best teacher. When I clicked on the "update" button to replace Windows 7 with Windows 10, did I consult my mental diary of upgrade experiences? Nooooooooooo. Of course not. Instead, I bought into the "all your programs and settings will be there" assertion of obfuscating advertising-copy novelists. That claim had about as much validity and relationship to the concept of truth as a Republican Presidential candidate approaching primary season. (Sorry - I suppose that last bit is from a deep-seated need to vent a buildup of spleen. The state in which I reside is geographically located next to the sate of New Hampshire, which is often in a state about something or other, and has the 'first in the nation' primary. The general area is currently lousy with Republican candidates pushing a worldview which has little resemblance to the world as it exists. Lest anyone think I exaggerate, please remember that there is ample record proving that many of the Republican candidates either deny, or shillyshally around, the basic truths of evolution, and global warming. I don't know why I find this so undefensively reprehensible; after all, these folks have yet to accept that Regan era  "trickle down" economics didn't work to lift the masses into financial nirvana, and aren't going to do so. (Speaking as the possessor of an XY chromosome set, I would share my knowledge of 'trickle down', but I don't wish to be vulgar.) As the New Hampshire primary is in February, and as the tv stations hereabouts (from Vermont and Massachusetts) cover New Hampshire, the profusion of political advertising makes it unsafe for those who value either their sanity, or an even temperament (or both), to turn the damn thing on. It's akin to advertisements for Christmas goods blaring at one in June.

But I digress. And I shall do so for another minute - I saw not just Christmas advertising, but Christmas themed tv movies on cable channels at the end of May. People have been joking for a few years now about the mixing of Halloween and Christmas items at the stores. A few weeks ago, I saw an advertisement for Halloween costumes or candy or something. The backdrop against which the live action was displayed was of evergreen trees with lights in them. There is no escape.

The writing of this entry in the blog has been interrupted several times. I had an unexpected ride to my garden (normally a 40- 45 minute walk) where I worked on the sad task of shutting some of it down for the season. I also got to enjoy the new addition to the garden this year - the Chinese Asters. I'd never grown them before, and thought they would be a little taller. The seed was only available as mixed colors, which I usually don't like. But these are just wonderful. I don't know if they will seed in, but I will definitely be putting these end of season bloomers in the garden again next year.

I haven't yet started in on Windows 10. For now, I am going to assume that Microsoft is in league with the bureaucrats who designed the current Medicare system.  It's either that, or they are in league with Satan. I've run out of time to try to expound upon their attempt to drive me insane.

So, here's the radio show from two Saturdays ago which, after a slight nod to the (then upcoming) change of seasons visited September 1938 as the Latchis Memorial Theatre was about to have its grand opening, which was thwarted by the Hurricane of 1938. I don't have the time now to post any of the newspaper articles or pictures - there are a several over three posts on the radio show's Facebook page. Use this link to check those out - you'll be able to click through each post,  but you won't be able to "like", or comment, etc.
 https://www.facebook.com/Recycled-Radio-621059471269529/timeline/
The show's finale is a half hour "Camel Caravan" with Benny Goodman originally broadcast September 20th, 1938.



Last night's show (September 26th) fell on George Gershwin's birthday. It seemed fitting that the show be devoted to his music.



As always, I hope anyone who is kind enough to listen to my little efforts enjoys the shows.

It's just a (September) garden in the rain...

It's exciting to be back working on a blog post after just two days. It's still a busy time, so this almost feels like cheating time away from other projects. But I'm about to start making my third cup of coffee; it has rained off and on most of the night and morning, providing gentle percussion for the background noises of life;  my friend Ralph (an absent minded professor if there ever was one) is on the air with a show playing some of the earliest recordings of  "Jass"; and to be quite frightfully honest, I don't mind ignoring catching up on cleaning, doing dishes, and organizing. As of last Sunday, I am 65. I'm retired. I no longer care that I've been on the drop and go lifestyle again and let things get to the point that I have to 'catch up' on the cleaning.

We've had rain a couple of times this week; we certainly needed it. It has been uncomfortably hot and humid again, but this current rain seems to have finally broken that pattern. With the improvement this has brought to the weather, last evening's sleep lasted over 8 hours. I'm normally a 6 hour sleeper; these last couple of weeks I've only managed about 4 to 5 hours in shifts of wakefulness versus slumber. The effects of this have been so pronounced that even in my dreams I don't sleep properly.

Late summer zinnias at Solar Hill

 The garden at this time of year becomes less of a dream and more of a mess. Between the heat, the humid heaviness in the air, and the intensity of the direct sun, I do not accomplish much after 10 or 11 am. I spend a bit of my morning garden time tending to the Solar Hill gardens as well as my own. Solar Hill's beds are a little more formal in style; weeds tend to show and distract. My own spot of alleged heaven is what I attempt to pass off as being in the cottage garden style, which (in my mind at least) is much more forgiving of weeds. After protracted dry spells, the rains startle the weeds into spurts of growth that are awe inspiring. I take some comfort in the thought that at least they fill in the empty patches left by plants which have already gone by for this season.  The rains have also made it difficult to work in the garden. Not just because everything is so wet, and not just because it is easier to pass plant diseases around as one brushes against them. My problem is that I like gardens in the rain, flowers bent over with drops of water as though Disney artists of the 30's had been turned loose in creation of Technicolor multiplane visions. I tend to stand around and stare.

An old variety of Morning Glory volunteered near the garden gate. I assisted them in finding their way up the fence and over to the arch of the garden's gate. Oh, by the way, that mess in the back, extending off to the left? That's my area. The dark purple of the old morning glories really captured my attention this year. There was a bit of  black eyed Susan intermingling with them,  but they have gone by. The effect was wonderful - I noticed several people stopping to take pictures.

The above was taken just a few weeks ago as the morning glories were getting started.

Meanwhile, back in the rainy mess of my area...

I like the older double white cosmos, which I start from seed as one never finds it at the garden centers anymore. It grows very tall, 7 feet or more, and when not staked, bends over easily in the rain or a wind. The red cosmos is darker than most varieties now available, also started from seed. But it isn't as proficient a bloomer.  Next year, I'll have to sow more of it.

It's been too hot to edge the beds. I tend to not stake my dahlias - I like the effect of them nodding over after wind and rain have gotten to them.

 I used to have a neighbor gardener who parked her plants across from my spot, and rarely got back to tend to them.
At this point, we haven't seen her for many years.  I've begun cleaning up her area so we can enjoy some f the treasures that were hidden by the weeds - like this charming late blooming daylily. It looks rather smashing against the wild Artemisia.

Meanwhile, the last bloom on any of my daylilies was caught by the sun peaking through the clouds.

I haven't had snow-on-the-mountain in my garden for many years. I've always liked it, and this year was delighted to see it appear in a seed catalogue which specializes in heirloom seeds . Of course I ordered it. Even though I don't have room or proper light to do so, I started it indoors during the last weeks of winter. With any luck I'll find where I put the seed packet so I can do it again next year in case it doesn't seed itself in.

Yes, it's a weedy overgrown mess. I just squint my eyes and tell myself it's Monet.

 

Last night's radio show observed a few birthdays of favorite performers - Dick Haymes, Bobby Short, Yma Sumac, and Mel Torme . The old Philco helped with those observances before tuning in September 1940, managing to catch bits of Burns and Allen, Beat the Band, The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, Refreshment Time With Singing Sam, and news bulletins (with Edward R. Murrow reporting from London) before settling on Glenn Miller's September 17th Moonlight Serenade from Providence, R.I.



As always, I hope any listeners enjoy the show.